Omole Tasks Universities’ Alumni Associations On Devt

THE chairman of The Guardian Editorial Board, Prof. Wale Omole, has identified alumni associations as being strategic to the attainment of excellence in Nigerian universities and in attracting to them, crucial but, scarce material, financial and other relevant resources needed to make the universities fulfill the overall national development goal underlining their establishment.

Prof. Omole, who spoke Friday in Lagos at the inauguration of the Board of Trust (BoT) of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife Alumni Association, noted that members of the OAU alumni association were not only partners in the development of the university, they were its ambassadors in all parts of the world they had spread to.

Omole, who was also inaugurated as the pioneer chairman of the association’s BoT, pledged to mobilize the Board, the association and the university’s management to take the institution to the level of first class institutions like Harvard.

The BoT is made up of other prominent Nigerians like the Managing Director of Neimeth Pharmaceuticals, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, Court of Appeal Justice, Fatty Abubakar (wife of former Head of State General Abdulsalami Abubakar), Deaconess Deborah Adepoju, a retired school principal and several times chairman of the Osogbo branch of the association and Prof. Solomon Okobia, who single-handedly equipped a block of students’ hostel built by the association in 2003.

Apart from the BoT members who were at the occasion, other eminent alumnus present included the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Tale Idowu Omole, accompanied by some principal officers of the university, the Alumni Association World-wide president, Alhaji Adeolu Shokunbi, the association’s emeritus President, Wale Olaoye, the National Legal Adviser, Mrs. Kate Emordi, among others.