AFE BABALOLA UNIVERSITY, ADO-EKITI, NIGERIA:
A Luminary Bequeaths Legacy to Humanity
By Tunji Ajayi
I keep appreciating the erudition of that great philosopher Harold Laswell who postulated that the modern-day journalists’ sacred commission should include “surveying the environment; correcting parts of the environment; and transmitting culture”. Thus, the media and the practitioners the world over have that unrestricted latitude to keep abreast of happenings in their neighborhoods and report them accurately, devoid of slanting or bias, in keeping to the tenets of their profession. It is only when they do so that they are truly informing, educating and entertaining the society, who also has the inalienable right to be informed. Though law would surmise in unmistakable terms: “Du minimis non curat lex” because law does not take account of trifles. But journalism does. Yes. Every piece of information is important and sacred in journalism. Indeed the most infinitesimally minute detail may form the fulcrum or the scoop of a news story or newspaper feature. Thus, a journalist who fails to “know something about everything, and everything about something” is bereft of essential knowledge to perform his sacred duties.
Our society becomes a better place when we all start in our respective circumstances and capacities to pursue only the ideals for the common good of humanity. Like the British statesman and erstwhile minister Winston Churchill once averred: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give”. Only the highly perceptive men know that what we give out is what we keep. But what we hold on tenaciously to is what we lose. Our societies are blessed with certain great men of honour who are unwavering in transforming their immediate societies into a better place without counting the costs. Nigeria has her own in a legal luminary of international repute, the Aare (Chief) Afe Babalola, CON, OFR and a revered Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). The philanthropist must have been motivated by passion and altruistic feelings just like that great political activist and entrepreneur Marcus Garvey. The irredentist freedom fighter once became puzzled about the stagnation of his society back then; and in a tone of anguish and lamentation Garvey asked some rhetorical questions: “Where is the black man's Government? Where is his King and his kingdom? Where is his President, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs?” Marvey retorted in despondency and utter regret. Hear him: “I could not find them, and then I declared, 'I will help to make them.’” Certainly the state apparatchik were there physically. But like “homo mortis” they were non-performers. Garvey was determined to act decisively. “He would make them”.
Nigeria’s educational system has been in decrepit state for ages. Hardly is there any year without prolonged strike actions by the university lecturers and administrative staff members. For decades now, their grouse, among others, included government’s nonchalance in the provision of relevant infrastructure for the growth and development of Nigeria’s University educational system. In “ASUU’s Malady & Government’s Complacency” (Ohio Wesleyan University Press, USA, Nov. 19, 2020) this writer had written: “The Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities has always gone on strike in the last 35 years. What makes a situation so intractable that a government cannot nip in the bud for 35 years!? The university system can no longer function with a purposeful academic calendar like in the past, without being disrupted by incessant strike actions. Whilst our children’s educational progress perpetually remains in quandary the government watches our predicament helplessly. ASUU has always accused the government of breaching bilateral agreements by not honoring her own words. The most dishonorable thing for a man or an institution is to breach agreement. A breach of agreement is a criminal breach of trust.”
Just like Marcus Garvey was puzzled about horrid and horrendous situations in his time, Chief Afe Babalola too must have also pondered in bewilderment and asked himself, “What would revive our decrepit educational system and save it from its death knell?” The ebullient Chief and legal luminary with uncommon passion for the development of Nigerian educational system knew very well that a sinner is not only someone who has done something ignoble, but is also the one who fails to do what is noble. Chief Afe Babalola was poised to provide his own brand of solution to the age-long jigsaw puzzle. He would build a University of world-class status, perhaps to confirm the veracity of the claim that where there is a strong will, there is lee way, and that there is no failure for a man that looks forward with resilience. He did exactly so; thus proving that it is possible to have a well-equipped university with state of the arts infrastructure. Thus, his noble action proves to the dilly-dallying Government in unmistakable terms that it is possible to bridge the yawning gap between promising and doing – the hallmark of government’s crass insensitivity to public requests since the past decades. Government complacency has led to the total collapse of Nigeria’s university educational system, and has snowballed into frantic search for the alternatives, ostensibly found in mass exodus into neighboring countries of many Nigerian students in dire need of qualitative university education. However, the concomitant effect was yearly huge capital flight in millions of dollars, into other countries in the West African sub region and other parts of the world that took development of education serious. While Nigeria was losing immensely, other countries’ educational tourism was improving and profiting.
In the piece earlier mentioned above, this writer’s lamentation continued: “Nigeria is a country with misplaced priorities, and the system has rapidly driven the people into a state of anomie. We have changed to worshipping and celebrating mundane things, far more than what could transform our country and her people into an enviable position. As the government continually abdicates her responsibilities toward revamping our educational system, our far-sighted but traumatized youths also observe the official neglect and government’s ineptitude. The government’s ambivalent position is continually sending wrong signals into the psyche and the impressionable minds of our youth. If our children could always be hurled out of the university campuses, each time for a long period, due to one ASUU strike or another and the government does not seem to know a way out, then how do we convince them about the importance of education and the need to take academic works serious?”
To have a better society, it is apropos to appreciate worthy initiatives and sterling virtues, by honoring one of our great heroes on the vanguard of educational reformation and revival who premises his lives on the pursuit of excellence and the ideals, for the service of humanity and our common good. After all, the Latin aphoristic maxim gives us the admonition: “Honor Virtutis Praemium” because honour is the reward of virtues. The affable nonagenarian Aare (Chief) Afe Babalola, CON, OFR, SAN must have leveraged on his past useful experience to establish one of the most exquisitely beautiful universities in Africa, having been the Pro-chancellor of the University of Lagos between 2001 and 2008 during which time his astuteness transformed the institution into an enviable status; thus earning him the enviable status of the best Pro-Chancellor in the country for two consecutive years. The urbane senior advocate is one of the greatest legal luminaries and academic gladiators Nigeria has ever produced, who even at 80 was cerebral and agile enough to teach law in the classroom! His passion for educational development eminently reflected in the ravishing status of his Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, the capital of Ekiti State, South West Nigeria; a state also renowned for having a large number of academic scholars and emeritus professors as sons and daughters. An agrarian economy, Ekiti State is on the vanguard of the revival of, and re-focusing on tourism as one of the key foreign exchange earners for the state and indeed the country which had ignobly and imperviously relied on crude oil as the mainstay of her economy for decades.
Like Benjamin Franklin, an American philosopher once averred poignantly: “It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness; and I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.” Aare Afe Babalola’s penchant for dogged pursuance of excellent virtues must have contributed to the eminence of his status and his uniquely beautiful university. Established in 2009, the Afe Babalola University (ABUAD) emerged the second best private university in Nigeria barely four years of its establishment. In the same period it emerged the 17th best amongst the then 136 universities in Nigeria.
In “Soyinka’s Lamentation & Our Albatross on Education” (Ohio Wesleyan University Press, USA, Oct. 15, 2019), I emphasized the danger in government not realizing her errors with little prodding, with a view to making restitutions promptly. We have a nation that is too busy to give enough and undisguised attention to the educational needs of its youths. What a man destroys when drunk, he must be prepared to bear the consequence of his ineptitude and pay for the damage when he gains lucid hours. Thus, Nigeria should bear the brunt of backwardness and social vices that will expectedly thrive in a society that undermines the essence of good education. Indeed, Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher once said, "Education has for its object the formation of character." A scholar added that education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive. He added a puncher: “They are easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.” Our depreciating standard of education now is a grand reflection of systemic failures since the past years. Thus, like Bob Nesta Marley hollered in the track, entitled Trench town Rocks: “You reap what you sow.” If we didn't want youth's apathy towards education, the system should not have discouraged its pursuit. Why does a nation have several billions allocated to educational development over the years, but still has her public school buildings and other infrastructure in decrepit state? Great minds like Chief Afe Babalola (SAN) must have reasoned deep on behalf of a complacent system that if students are more outside on the streets than in the lecture rooms, with their aggrieved lecturers agitating for better educational system, the dismal situation of youth delinquency, brigandage and vandalism and insecurity would worsen by the day, since the youths’ idle hands would continue to be the devil’s workshop. His intervention has eloquently paid off by filling the void in the provision of an exemplary university educational system with world-class infrastructural facilities. A cynosure of eyes, ABUAD founded truly to reform functional education eloquently epitomizes excellence and distinction in all ramifications, especially in terms of adequacy of modern infrastructure, astute university administration, promotion of scholasticism, character molding, philanthropy, etc. With six colleges and the Post-Graduate school, ABUAD runs a whopping 57 different courses and a youth empowerment programme in agric barely 12 years of its establishment; a feat worthy of high accolades.
Aside from impartation of sound knowledge in diverse academic disciplines, ABUAD, now a university in a paradisiacal state of excellence is imbued with uncanny passion to reform medical tourism. How a single individual could establish such a great university with a multi-system hospital well equipped with world-class facilities and well-qualified personnel beats all imaginations, especially where various strata of governments with access to public funds are groping in the dark alley of confusion and lamentation, unsure of how to revamp her educational institutions in the pang of distress and debilitation for decades. The bottom-line here? The perspicacious Aare Afe Babalola has proven a salient point that regardless of availability of billions of resources, it is great and determined minds with astute management, altruistic zeal and patriotism to national cause that can lend vitality to our public institutions.
The university has successfully performed a kidney transplant operation and many other feats in its world-class twin-transplant theatre. If our public hospitals are truly meant to save lives on normal and exigency situations, rendering epileptic and spasmodic services, while the aggrieved medical doctors are either picketing or embarking on endless strike actions due to non-provision of needed infrastructure and human resources should be urgently addressed by the government without further delay.
Born 1929, the legal luminary established his private university in 2009 at the age of 80. Evidently, except for patriotic zeal and unbridled passion for bequeathing sound education to humanity, what would make a sage at 80 establish such a magnificent institution in a country with depleting and depressing economy, when he could easily site it in an economically stable and viable country and earn hard and strong currencies; or recline in his mansion and enjoy the fruits of his fame and hard labor of many years, without having to brainstorm daily on highly tasking institutional management? Now at 90, not many nonagenarians would run after money and pecuniary gains. There are certain ages and status in life when wealth acquisition or income generation naturally fizzles out of man’s physiological needs. But for this altruistic and patriotic man of valour who fervently believes in leaving useful legacies behind for humanity, let our world rise up and chant “detur digniori” in unison for a sage worthy of quadruple honours.
Like a Swiss educational reformer, Johann Pestalozzi would say: “He who bears the interests of humanity in his breast, is richly blessed. May the great sage whose good fortune is tied to virtue continue to revel in happiness for being bountifully blessed. May his deep love for Nigeria and the entire humanity never fizzle. May many other Nigerians learn to glorify sterling virtues and chastise vices like Aare Chief Afe Babalola. May our leaders learn that nothing can stop any altruistic man with the right mental attitude from achieving common goals, and nothing on earth can help any leader with the wrong mental attitude to achieve any success and keep electoral promises. May our leaders, like the ebullient legal luminary, not only see with their eyes, but also with their hearts. For the eyes may turn blind due to exuberance and perquisites of office, but the heart could always be prodded to act right, because whatever a leader does today becomes history tomorrow for the incoming generation to learn from. May we all take wisdom from the witty words of Horace Mann, the American lawyer and educator. Hear him: “Be ashamed to die until you have won victory for humanity.” Verbum Satis Sapienti.
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*’Tunji Ajayi, a creative writer, author, biographer and audiovisual documentary producer writes from LC-Studio Communications, Nigeria (+2348033203115, +2348162124412)
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