Razaq Bamidele
Basorun Reuben Famuyibo, has condemned in its entirety, agitation for appointment of an Ife indigene as Vice Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), describing the development as archaic and roundly unmeritorious.
Famuyibo, an alumnus of the institution when it was University of Ife (UNIFE), before it was changed to Obafemi Awolowo University in honour of the onetime Premier of the Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, advised that the people of Ile-Ife should stop the on-going protest against the appointment of a non-indigene of the ancient town as the head of the institution.
Famuyibo, who is the Ekiti State governorship candidate of the Accord Party (AP), for the June 18 governorship poll made his mind known on the issue through a statement from his Special Adviser on Media, Olajide Omojolomoju, in which he stated that, either as University of Ife, as it was known at establishment by the old Western Region government, or as OAU, by which it is known today, the citadel of learning was never established on a pedestal of ethnicity or indigene ship.
His words: “The founders and foundation members of the university, in the persons of the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo, Prof. Sam Aluko, Prof Olomola and Prof Banji Akitoye, among other pioneers, never in the history of the University of Ife or OAU built the institution on ethnicity. The call by Ife people that an indigene of Ile-Ife should be appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of OAU is not only alien, but archaic to educational development in the South-West. We should desist from this unmeritorious and backward thinking.”
The Ekiti State AP governorship candidate added that nowhere was it established that the Vice-Chancellor of OAU should be an indigene of Ile-Ife.
Concluding, the popular politician therefore appealed to the people of Ile-Ife to eschew tribalism and allow peace to reign in the citadel of learning, cautioning that, “what is going on now is an ill-wind that will blows no one any good and the establishment of the university in Ile-Ife does not mean that the VC should be an indigene of Ile-Ife.”
