“The launch will position ABUAD as a university that is entrepreneurship-focused, a university that will be producing job creators and not mere job seekers. It will ensure that every student attending the university benefits from digital empowerment and practical exposure”
By Tunde Olofintila
Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, ABUAD, is set to hit global headlines again as students of the 15-year-old university ranked by Times Higher Education Impact Rankings among the Best 100 Universities in the world and No. 1 in Nigeria for four consecutive years: 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, are set to launch “Air Purifier”, an ICT device/solution for gauging air humidity, in February next year, the first of its kind in Africa.
The launch under the supervision of New Horizons, the world’s largest ICT training organization established in 1982, is the product of ABUAD/New Horizons’ partnership and determination to ensure the production of entrepreneurship-minded graduates and not those with mere academic certification that will be shopping for jobs after graduation.
Speaking over the weekend when the university’s Founder & Chancellor, Aare Afe Babalola, OFR, CON, SAN, was conducted round the ultra-modern Information Communication Technology Centre equipped with 150 sophisticated computers designed to further boost performances of students and lecturers of the university, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of New Horizons, Mr. Tim Akano, said that through the launch, ABUAD students will be turned into marketable innovators while the attention of the world would be shifted to ABUAD.
Akano emphasized that the launch will largely be predicated on “Internet of Things”, IOT, a concept which underscores the use of the internet to monitor virtually anything, adding that it will be beneficial to ABUAD students in many ways, including but not limited to the following:
* The launch and its continuous application will build the requisite confidence, focus and discipline in ABUAD students in the ever-competitive global job market, stressing that in the contemporary world, the would-be employers look beyond university certificates before offering their jobs to prospective employees,
Product developed after the launch could be commercialized;
* The launch will position ABUAD as a university that is entrepreneurship-focused, a university that will be producing job creators and not mere job seekers; and
* The launch will ensure that every student attending the university benefits from digital empowerment and practical exposure expected of a world-class institution of Higher Education.
Speaking on a global note, Akano lamented that most graduates in contemporary times do not have the required requite skills the industries are looking for in addition to university degrees.
His words: “Graduates of nowadays do not have what the industries require: skills in addition to academic certification. It must always be realised that as good as academic certificates are, they are not sufficient. We are therefore out to marry certification with the requisite skills required in today’s employment market.
“For graduates of today to thrive, they need ICT skills in their respective areas of study/specialization. ABUAD was established to teach others how a university, properly so-called, should be run. Our partnership will strengthen the ABUAD franchise in the comity of universities globally.
“We want to put ABUAD in the Guinness Book of Records by ensuring that it will be the first university in Nigeria to have 2,500 computers in one hall. This will be in addition to producing and providing solutions of world standards. We want the world to shift attention to ABUAD. It is possible because we have done it in 90 different countries around the world, including USA, UK, France, Germany, China, Hungry and South Africa among others”.
In Nigeria, New Horizons operates in 150 universities and high schools, training over 100,000 students yearly. Some of the New Horizons’ partnering universities include but are not limited to Babcock University, Ilishan, Remo; Redeemer University, Ede; BOWEN University, Iwo; BELLS University, Ota; and Lead City University, Ibadan as well as University of Lagos.
Reacting to the salutary development of the launching of Air Purifier in February next year, the elated Founder & Chancellor of the university, Aare Afe Babalola, OFR, CON, SAN, LL. D (London), Fellow, King’s College, London, FNAE, said the launch will be a further realization of his dream and desire to make the university a shining example of how a university, properly so-called, should be run.
According to him, the avalanche of national and international Awards, accolades and recognitions as well as encomium so far showered on the university by notable Regulatory Bodies and Educational stakeholders have already confirmed his position.
For example, the National Universities Commission, the Regulator Body for University Education in Nigeria, has acknowledged the university as “a model, benchmark and reference point” as well as “the pride of University system in Nigeria” and endorsed by the Association of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (AVCNU) as “the most successful private university in Nigeria”. UNESCO also acknowledged it as “a world class institution of Higher Education”.
The former Pro Chancellor & Chairman of Council of the University of Lagos recalled what the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed, said about him when he visited the university in June 2014.
After touring the length and breadth of the university, the former CJN came to the ultra-modern College of Law Building. Looking round the massive building, the learned Jurist took a deep breath and asked rather rhetorically: “Aare Afe Babalola, what else do you want? If it is money, you have it. If it is goodwill, you have it in quantum. If it is success in your career, you are by any means successful. I don’t know what else you want to become”.
Replying the learned Jurist, said: “I thank God for what he has enabled me to achieve in my lifetime. My wish, my hope and prayer are that this university must, in my lifetime, be recognized by the international body as one of the Best 100 in the world. So, I still have a lot of work to do to bring this dream into fruition”.
Now that the university has been ranked by Times Higher Education Impact Rankings among the Best 100 Universities in the World, Babalola has shifted the goal post of his dream and ambition about his university: He said his dream, prayer, wish and hope now are that his university, ABUAD, should be ranked among the Best 50 in the world before his very eyes on the planet earth.
May his dream, prayer, wish and hope come true and before his very eyes.
* Olofintila, ABUAD’s Corporate Affairs Director, writes from Ado-Ekiti.
