Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti
A 92-year-old third substantive Registrar of the then University of Ife, (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile Ife, Osun State, Chief Alex Ajayi, has described as a gross debasement of the Ivory Towers the recent attack on OAU by protesters over the tussle on the appointment of a new Vice Chancellor, Prof. Adebayo Simeon Banire.
Ajayi, who was at different times OAU’s Governing Council member and registrar, posited that appointment of a VC in any federal institution is by merit, and can’t be predicated on ethnicity and other sentiments.
The first graduate of Ado Ekiti metropolis stated this in a chat with journalists in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, yesterday over the attack by indigenes and traditionalists of Ile Ife on the university over the appointment of a new vice chancellor.
The attack was said to have been propelled by the intention of some Ile- Ife indigenes to have one of the professors from that town appointed as the VC.
In his view, Ajayi described the assailants as myopic and barbaric with their unwarranted action, saying federal universities appoint their VCs based on merit and not by pandering to narrow sentiment.
Ajayi, therefore, urged Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, to swiftly intervene and rein in on those he described as “uninformed attackers,” and prevent them from defiling the school that commands high regard nationally and globally.
He said: “For 10 years, 1966-1976, I was appointed by the military government of late General Aguiyi Ironsi and Lt Col Adekunle Fajuyi of the Western Region as a pioneer member of the statutory governing council of the university and also invited by the university into the administration to act as deputy registrar/acting registrar in 1969.
“I am worried that a new generation of the so-called Ife indigenes had returned OAU to the Dark Age. The location of the university at Ife should be a joy because other competitors abounded, like Owo. Oba Olateru Olagbegi wanted it located between Owo and Benin, so that the Benin people won’t break away from the Southwest.
“If it is the present day dispensation, Chief Obafemi Awolowo would have sited the university at Ikenne and nobody would have changed it. By the third year of the University of Ife, only one Ife indigene was an academic staff, Mr. Oretuyi, who was an assistant lecturer in Law. A few others joined later.
“These hoodlums are a disgrace to Ife. They don’t know the norms of appointment of a VC in the university. They thought the university was like a local modern school or Magrantha. They are not informed that it is excellence that decides appointments in the universities.
“For my 10 years with Oxford and Cambridge Universities, never did I hear of appointment being done at the level of nativity. An Igbo Man, Prof. Onwemechili, succeeded Prof Aboyade at the university as VC and the revered Prof Kenneth Dike was the first VC of University of Ibadan.”
Debasing further the concept of nativity being propounded by Ile Ife people, Ajayi posited that since inception of OAU, Ekiti
State has always constituted 60 percent of the academic staff, and the numerical strength didn’t spur them to agitate to be VC, adding that the first Ekiti State indigene to be VC in the institution was appointed just a few years ago.
“That the university is located at Ile-Ife at all is of monumental advantage to the city. The economic, social, intellectual and international boosts the university has brought are unquantifiable. They have helped in bringing the city from a sleepy community to a vibrant centre of culture and learning.”
The former registrar added that Ile-Ife has no reason to claim ownership of a university that belongs to the federal government, referring the act as an aberration.
