AWUJALE: FROM ENDOWED UNIVERSITY CHAIR TO GOVERNANCE INSTITUTE
by Ayo Olukotun
"It is our goal to be among the very best universities in our nation and our world and that means we have to have the best talent… Endowed faculty professorships and chairs make it possible to recruit and retain that talent" – Brochure of the University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, United States
In March 2016, the Awujale of Ijebuland, His Royal Majesty, Oba (Dr.) Sikiru Kayode Adetona, who turned 87 on Monday, organized an elaborate fund raising ceremony with the purpose of creating an endowed professorial chair in governance at the Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University. The culture of endowed professorships is yet to take root in Nigeria's underdeveloped academic setting and it is no wonder that many in the academic community, and certainly, beyond it, are not familiar with the idea, and its potential as a conveyor belt of academic excellence. What is an endowed professorial chair? The University of Texas at Dallas, which brochure is quoted in the opening paragraph, instructively informs that it "is the highest academic award that the University can bestow on a faculty member. It is both an honour to the named holder and also an enduring tribute to the donor who establishes it".
True, there has been a scattering of endowed professorial chairs in our universities but like most things in our social and educational landscape, they were short-lived. The majority of them disappeared either due to lack of proper management or because no enduring plan was laid down for continuity. Aware of these challenges, the Adetona Chair started on a grand scale of a N1 Billion endowment fund, arguably the largest in Nigeria and beyond, managed by a Board of Trustees comprising well-known professionals who have distinguished themselves in finance and industry. The work of the Board and its prudent management style are facilitated by Kabiyesi himself who is Chairman, and is justly renowned for financial circumspection. It is to his credit and that of the board that most of the expenses of the Chair, which has recently dovetailed into the Oba (Dr.) Adetona Institute of Governance Studies also located at the Ago-Iwoye campus of Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), have come under the interest earned by the seed money. What does this show? It demonstrates that with foresight and sound management, such endowments can endure in perpetuity, accruing benefits to scholarly excellence, as well as the universities that warehouse them. Remarkably, and as has been noted previously, Adetona has added to the Professorial Chair which took off in November 2016 with the appointment of this columnist as pioneer occupant, another exciting achievement, namely, the establishment of a Governance Institute. Many visitors to OOU have noted the aesthetic uplift of the University brought about, not just by new imposing buildings and ongoing construction projects, but also the renovation of roads that have attended these academic enterprises.
Doubtless, the new OOU is partly the handiwork of two successive industrious Vice-chancellors, Professors Saburi Adesanya and Ganiyu Olatunde, the incumbent; nonetheless, it is difficult to downplay the many blessings and markups that both the endowed Chair and burgeoning Institute have already spawned in that academic landscape. The question can be asked, why governance? Adetona provided a clue at the March 10, 2016 launch of the endowment, held at Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island. In a speech entitled, 'We Must Not Give Up', the traditional ruler narrated his vision for the endowed Chair by intimating that it would be a centre of discourse around topical and contemporary issues, research and innovative thinking. It was expected, also, to stimulate the current and next generation to develop solutions to Nigeria's myriad and seemingly intractable problems which centres on governance. The articulation of this agenda setting is in tandem with Adetona's belief that once we get education right, other inspiring developments will follow. Unsurprisingly, therefore, he had chosen to focus, not just on higher education, but on the study of and research into, governance, an area in which Nigeria has been notoriously deficient.
Talking about education, in general, Kabiyesi had written, in his well regarded autobiography, that "our educational system requires very special attention. The root of all our developmental problems, our stifled national growth, and shortcomings in our national behaviour, can be largely traced to the weakening of our educational system". There is no doubt, therefore, that the twin legacy projects of the endowed Professorial Chair and the Governance Institute constitute crucial milestones in the fulfillment of Adetona's dream to remake Nigeria by paying conspicuous attention to educational development. For instance, the preoccupation, thus far, of the endowed Chair, which last week, witnessed the commencement of the tenure of its second occupant, Professor Akinsola Agagu, had been in keeping with its key objectives including: the initiation and execution of research that aims at finding solutions to contemporary challenges and issues of governance at local, state, national and global levels; the promotion of scholarship, research activities, as well as opportunities for collaboration with scholars and institutions from all over the world. Other objectives as iterated in the Chair's Handbook are: the improvement of the reputation, brand and global ranking of Olabisi Onabanjo University through the dissemination of high-quality publications produced by the Professorial Chair; serving as a think-tank on issues of national policies by generating ideas and innovative discussions that will enhance policy formulation and implementation, among others.
Obviously, it would take more than one Chair to fully achieve, in the short and medium terms, these lofty objectives. Hence, the establishment, by the same donor, in conjunction with the University, of the Institute of Governance Studies, with the expectation that one will reinforce the other. That apart, there is the potential of the two institutions to serve as magnets which will attract other donors, individual and corporate, to OOU and other universities in the country. In this connection, it is noteworthy that in some universities in the Western world, especially the outstanding ones, close to one-third of the professoriate hold endowed chairs with spin-offs for research, global networking, teaching, and improvement in ranking. That is partly why it is such a pity that, beyond token efforts, the Nigerian university system, with a few exceptions, has failed to exercise this dimension of academic leadership. Undoubtedly, the best universities in the world are also the ones with the highest number of endowed chairs with corresponding impact on scholarly visibility. It is in this perspective that we must situate and applaud Adetona's benevolence to Olabisi Onabanjo University and the Nigerian scholarly community as a whole. In a season of dwindling funding to universities, he has offered a possible escape route for poorly funded universities to rise to acclaim and a measure of self-sufficiency.
Given the current state and decay of Nigerian universities, many have wondered if our institutions of higher learning will ever reclaim the space they once occupied in the Anglophone world, where several of them inhabited important academic niches. One way to jumpstart the ascent of our academies is to hook them up to industries, commercial centres and to enlightened donors such as Oba (Dr.) Sikiru Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebuland who appreciate the value of higher education.
It is apposite to close this intervention by wishing him a happy birthday and many edifying returns.
- Prof. Ayo Olukotun is a distinguished Professor at the Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye.
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