Nigeria's Magnificent Obafemi Awolowo University Campus in Urgent Need of Assistance

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

One of the most wonderful, if not the most wonderful campus in Nigeria and certainly one of the most glorious in the world, the campus of Obafemi Awolowo University, is in great need of environmental and infrastructural regeneration.

The university is putting in effort but the scope of the task is possibly beyond the financial resources and skills available to the university.

Awesome landscape of a scope and vegetative density rare for any institution, anywhere, wonderful trees carefully preserved by the university, beautiful human created landscaping, striking physical structures.

But the structures are particularly in great need of maintenance, as testified  by absence of paint, indoor spaces drenched by rain and dilapidated signboards, and problems of access to water, among other inadequacies.

The natural landscape, superb as it is, and as the university continually works at caring for it, can be better maintained, as indicated, for example by the high levels of wild growth of grass around some houses in the staff quarters and the university cemetry.

This is a crisis of national magnitude, affecting one of, if not the country's most impressive higher education institution.

[Harrow, Kenneth]

I love (loved) that exciting beautiful campus at ife. The first time, 1978, we went there from ibadan to see the opening of a play by soyinka, which was unaccountably canceled. We had been told not to drive from ibadan to ife in the dark: it was worth the risk to see the opening of a soyinka play! I went again not too many years ago, hosted by kayode ogunfolabi, and it was so wonderful to see him and his colleagues. I loved the art displays outdoor, the setting was incredibly beautiful up the hills. What a magnificent place, and of course i second toyin’s call to maintain its beauties and splendours. Its history for nigeria is not critical and invaluable. Think of all the creators and scholars that came through those halls. Its welcoming arch signalled a new day and age. I hope its spirit can be maintained forever. 

Ken

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2022 11:49:44 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: Yoruba Affairs <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria's Magnificent Obafemi Awolowo University Campus in Urgent Need of Assistance

 

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[Michael Afolayan]

Thanks, Ken (and Oluwatoyin). Great Ife was a home for me for about eight or so years of my life (first as a student and later, staff). I recall when I arrived as a student at Yale University. The first day I met Henry-Louis Gates, Jr., and he realized I came from Ife, the first thing he told me was his impression of the Ife campus. He went to visit his friend, Wole Soyinka. He was nervous going there because it would be his first visit to "Africa" and judged by all he had heard, it was going to be a scary "jungle" experience. He was totally flabbergasted. It was the most beautiful campus he had seen all his life! Here was someone who had studied at Yale and Oxford, yet was totally awed by the beautiful, most panoramic view anyone could dream of, at Great Ife. And so, I could see the mesmerizing feeling of Oluwatoyin on his first encounter with the campus and I could also "see" and "hear" his tone of disappointment for the maintenance glitch so palpable all around the campus (and in the staff quarters, which used to be second to none in elegance). Jaiyeoba's reaction is also right on the money.

For anyone who had been a part of the Great Ife's glory of the 1970s, you could not but shed a few drops of tears when you see the current state of the campus. The fact of the matter is that the amount of money budgeted by both the Oluwasanmi and Aboyade administrations for the maintenance of the grounds alone would probably be more than two times all that is budgeted for running the entire university today. The University even had a whole Division of Horticulture with scores of staff and a Chief Horticulture Officer at the professorial level. Yet, as the architecture professor said, it is a systemic problem. I agree with him absolutely. Maintenance is the bane of our society, not just on the Ife campus, but at other campuses, and all around our nation. Go to UI and walk around the once prestigious junior staff quarters of Abadina, and you would cry again. Travel on our roads and see the cruelty of a maintenance-visionless leadership of our country. Visit many of our governments' secretariats all around the country and you might be shocked that some of the buildings there are still the same ones that the colonial government erected before independence and now falling apart because no one is seeing the need to maintain them. It is no joke when the Yoruba people say Ọwọ́ níí t'ára ṣe (It takes the hand to groom the body into elegance); the postproverbial culture has even changed Ọwọ́ (the hand) to Owó (the money). Either way, the vision for maintenance is an essential tool for the assurance of aesthetics - be it of the body or of architectural pieces.

Just thinking along with you, folks!

MOA

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[Elias K. Bongmba]

I agree with Ken. It is indeed a beautiful campus. I have never been there, but the online presentation gives one a vivid image of the campus. I love the architecture.

Elias

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-- 
Elias Kifon Bongmba PhD, DTheo (Lund)
Harry and Hazel Chair in Christian Theology
Professor of Religion
Executive Editor, the Journal of Religion in Africa
Rice university
PO Box 1892 Houston TX 77251-1892
https://reli.rice.edu/faculty/elias-kifon-bongmba

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

How about a "Friends of Ife Committee" geared at re-beautification,

as its first project. Action speaks louder than words.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
www.africahistory.net

http://web.ccsu.edu/afstudy/archive.html

Chief Editor- "Africa Update"

www.vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali

Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries

2014 Distinguished Research Excellence Award in African Studies

 University of Texas at Austin

2019   Distinguished Africanist Award                   

New York African Studies Association

Founding Co -Chair. Sengbe Pieh AMISTAD Committee

Founding Director, African Studies, CCSU

 

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Elias K. Bongmba <bon...@rice.edu>
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria's Magnificent Obafemi Awolowo University Campus in Urgent Need of Assistance

 

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Such a committee would be great.

Thanks

Toyin

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[Bunmi fatoye-matory]

I'm on board.  Ife was the most transformative experience of my life.

Bunmi

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Fantastic, Bunmi 

Toyin

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