Monday Column By Emmanuel Yawe
royawe@yahoo.com | 08024565402
Whatever those who want to destroy Nigeria will try do, there is very little they can do in wiping out the positive influence of the University of Ibadan. Look at President Shehu Shagari for instance who was elected the first executive President of Nigeria. Widely derided in the media by his political opponents for being an “illiterate” President, he demonstrated his love and respect for education generally and the first Nigerian University in particular.
“My first step on that October day was the appointment of three key federal officials who brought with them the benefit of experience and continuity. Shehu Ahmadu Musa, a first-class graduate of Mathematics and Permanent Secretary Ministry of Finance, became Secretary to government. Mr. Gray Longe another Federal Permanent Secretary and reputable lawyer, was appointed Head of Civil Service and the ascetic policeman – Sociologist, Adamu Suleiman became the Acting Inspector General of Police. All three were incidentally graduates of University of Ibadan,” he wrote in his book Shehu Shagari Beckoned to Serve.
The point was made right from the beginning of the presidential system of governance in Nigeria that if you wanted the right people for the benefit of experience and continuity, you needed to pick your team from the alumnus of the first university in Nigeria. Those of us who were lucky to have studied there often refer to is as the first and the best University in Nigeria.
Concerned that the students of this great University were not interacting enough in the Federal Capital Territory, a group of its former students came together to form the UI Alumni Association in the Territory. They are led by Dr. Adebayo Adeyoyin who has sacrificed a lot personally to bring the branch to fruition. As the first University in Nigeria and the first Federal University for that matter, there is an air that envelopes former students of the university when they meet. There is no way one can explain the situation to you. You have to be part of it to understand it.
My first experience of this camaraderie experience was at the Governors Office in Akure Ondo State. I was posted there for my NYSC service year and had reported to the office from the Orientation Camp that was held at Adeyemi College of Education Ondo town. While discussing with a senior civil servant in the office, I mentioned off handedly that I studied at the university of Ibadan immediately his countenance changed. He allowed me the use of his official car at a time when there was one of those crippling fuel scarcity we often experience in Nigeria, and took me to one of the special guest houses meant for senior guests of the military Governor. All these because I mentioned UI. He later explained to me the following day why I was accorded these privileges – UI.
The joke when we were students at Ibadan was that there are only two universities in Nigeria: UI and the others. It used to make us proud and the students of the other universities jealous. But there was nothing they could do. There was a time we sat down to compute names of all the Vice Chancellors of the twelve universities the military had hurriedly created in Nigeria and we discovered that all of them were from UI. The practical demonstration of the jealousy was shown to me when we went to the University of Lagos for the Nigerian University Games NUGA in 1977. I went to watch a football match with my cousin from the Bayero University Kano. The match was between the University of Ibadan and the University of Nigeria Nsukka. I was expecting my cousin to be on the side of UI because of our blood relationship and the fact that he accompanied to the match. To my greatest surprise, he sided with the University at Nsukka. When I later asked him why he was cheering and clapping for Nsukka and not Ibadan, he said we were too proud at Ibadan for his liking..
It is not something we can help. It appears it just comes almost naturally. Look at my relationship with Florence Ehinaloye, the educationalist and author. I met her through her junior brother who has been my friend of almost forty years. About five years ago she invited me to her birthday in Warri which she used to present a book she had just written. As we got talking about the up-coming event, the fact of good chemistry just came up. We just realized we were all from UI even though she graduated long before I went there. Before this discovery, I admired her legal bearing and genial disposition. The fact that she went to UI was now an added credit.
UItes are proud lot. We call ourselves Great UItes. Recently this was changed to Greatest UItes. At our last meeting in Abuja last Saturday March 6, a member observed that he did not like the name Greatest UItes because all UItes are equal and none should be regarded as greater than the other. We were lucky to have at that meeting Mr Joseph Akaanan, the National Vice President who explained to us how the name Greatest UItes emerged to replace the Great UItes. He said if you goggle UI you will have such responses as University of Ilorin or University of Illinois hence the decision to accept them as UItes but to say we are the greatest of the lot.
What can you say of the University that produced the likes of Wole Soyinka, the first black African Nobel Laurate in Literature. Established in 1948, the University of Ibadan keeps flying higher every day.
