OOU AND TAKEAWAYS FROM A CONVOCATION LECTURE
Ayo Olukotun
One of the noticeable things about the 27th Convocation ceremony of the Ogun State-owned Olabisi Onabanjo University, held on Wednesday, 31st January is that it took place at all. For, as the Convocation Lecturer, Professor Michael Faborode noted, several years went by without graduating classes, as a result of paralysing internal crises, which twisted the university calendar out of control. However, as Faborode put it, "The good news for OOU is that the hard times are gone and a better OOU has been reengineered". That gust of fresh air, drawing upon the confidence created by five successive convocation ceremonies in a row, was evident on Wednesday, hinting of continuities between the administrations of a former Vice Chancellor, Professor Jimi Adesanya and the recently appointed incumbent, Professor Ganiyu Olatunde.
The lighter sides of the ceremony saw the visitor to the University, and governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, in ecstatic mood, adjusting the robes of some of the distinguished professionals, to whom honorary doctorate degrees were awarded, as well as the prolonged salute and rising in unison by staff, graduands and the invitees when the hefty Curriculum Vitae of Professor Toyin Falola, Distinguished Professor from the University of Texas was being read by the University Orator. Enduring takeaways came from the pedigree of the honorees and the Convocation Lecture: the first evoked the spirit of excellence, while the second, the lecture, contained policy prescriptions, which if implemented, would do our universities a world of good. The roll of honorees included the Alake of Egba Land, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, the eloquent Mrs. Ibukun Awosika, Chairman, Board of Directors of First Bank, Aigbojie Aig-Imoukuede, capital market mogul and financial wizard, as well as Africa's leading historian, Professor Toyin Falola.
Too often, our universities have been blamed for joining the Nigerian bazaar of selling honorary doctorates to the undeserving and morally compromised. The convocation was, at least, one occasion where no controversy can be raised about the stature of the recipients.
Equally stirring is the Convocation Lecture, which speaks to one of the topical issues in the public space, namely, how to lift our universities from their current backwater positions in global league tables to a modicum of the limelight and credibility they once enjoyed. Although Faborode focuses on state universities in Nigeria: problems, prospects and our common future, he inserts his topic in wider concerns about making Nigerian universities more contemporary and more relevant to the needs of the surrounding communities while still aspiring to global stature. Drawing on the wide ranging literature on the subject, the lecturer argued that world-class universities usually possess three attributes, namely, a high concentration of talents (faculty and students), abundant resources for building rich learning environments and conducting advanced research, as well as favourable governance, which connotes strategic vision, innovation and flexibility in decision making. According to him, it is the interrelationship and deployment of these factors that account for the success of the best universities in the world. He went on to say that of the three factors, governance is the most crucial, given that the other two could not be effectively channeled without leaders of vision and accountable governance structures. This of course, is somewhat debatable, considering that vision without resources and support structures, human and material, amount to little beyond day dreaming.
Part of the problem is that many of our universities came into existence in periods of national recession, and therefore, were born into leanness without having enjoyed the years of plenty, which the older universities enjoyed. Hence, one can contrast the constraining environmental and architectural profiles of most of our universities with the grandeur and spatial leeway of the older universities.
That contrast is a metaphor for other deficiencies, especially in the areas educational resources and quality manpower. True, a few of the best private universities, as well as state universities, as the lecturer indicated, have tried to overcome some of the handicaps, but they do not go far enough. For example, comparing Ekiti State University with Afe Babalola University, Faborode maintains that while Ekiti State University, which has been in existence since 1982 is yet to establish a teaching hospital to train medical doctors, Afe Babalola University, established nine years ago, now has a teaching hospital, which "may well be the best well-equipped modern teaching hospital in Nigeria". To be sure, the feat of ABUAD is worth remarking, but it takes more than building an elaborate structure to establish quality education. To put it in another way, ABUAD's achievement will only be complete when it is able to attract outstanding medical staff and students to its well-equipped hospital.
On one occasion a colleague and I were discussing the merits of a particular private university which has done well for itself in building a fantastic campus and setting up what is potentially an excellent learning environment. My colleague, looking me in the face, asked me a simple question: "Do you know any influential scholar who has been attracted to that university?" I mused for a while and answered, "No, I do not".
That anecdote throws a perspective on the limited achievement of constructing grand structures which are good in themselves, but without the requisite capacity to attract outstanding talents (faculty and students) to man and take advantage of them. All over the world, students, especially graduate students are attracted to scholars with clear identities and niches in their disciplines. So, in the humanities and social sciences, a graduate student might wish to learn at the feet of a Toyin Falola, a Femi Osofisan, a Layi Erioso or an Adigun Agbaje. Consequently, our universities, public and private still need to cross the hurdle of building not just eye-catching structures, but institutions that can attract outstanding talents, who will be magnets or selling points for bringing others around.
Interestingly too, Faborode insists that for our universities, especially state universities to improve their ranking on global league tables, they must tap into strengths of town and gown collaboration in order to build a knowledge economy, which would reciprocally foster interactions between the university, industry, as well as research and innovation institutes. This is an area where OOU has the advantage of location in the Lagos-Ogun industrial and financial hub, where entrepreneurial talents are heavily concentrated. The recent appointment of Mrs. Mosun Bello-Olusoga, Chairman of Access Bank, as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, as well as the endowment of a Professorial Chair in Governance by the Awujale of Ijebu Land, Oba Dr Sikiru Kayode Adetona, are harbingers of what can happen with greater and more focused collaboration between town and gown.
There is no reason why Ogun State should not lead the way in this direction. For example, if the many Senior Advocates of Nigeria from that state make the Faculty of Law a priority project for attention. It will go a long way into turning that faculty into a centre of excellence.
A university must do more than survive. It must seek to become a centre of innovation and distinction. The challenge for OOU and other universities in the coming years is to feature, as Faborode suggests, in the emergent Nigerian African Centres of Excellence and to earn a more advantageous location on the global knowledge map.
*Olukotun is the Oba (Dr.) Sikiru Kayode Adetona Professorial Chair in Governance, Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
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