Afe Babalola: Pounds versus Wisdom

[Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth]

Toyin Adepoju  the  words of  wisdom that Chief Afe BabalolaSAN  shares every week in his columns  in vanguard  and   nigerian tribune in my own opinion are worth more than the 10 milion pounds  he donated to kings college. money is not the only currency so we should not be distracted by the ten milion pounds. we have already been told that when an elder dies in africa  whole libraries are lost  and so what we should be trying to do is harvest what Papa Afe babalola has strored in his brain and stocked in his physical library.

at  94 years he is stil writing meaningfully and heavily supporting the staff at the Afe babalola universty and specialist state of the art 400 bed hospital with the result that they are winning global awards, the highest prizes in their categories/  what i understand  by papas action is a staggerd strategy, immediate term, intermediate term and long term.  i can see the immediate term in the kings college donation.he wants quick results for africa and i can discern long term plans for his own university which has some of the best facilities in the world like the relativlely unreported PLANETARIUM one of the biggest in the world .yes! in EkiT!  so lets give it to Baba. he has done well,

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

You need human and material systems to naximize human potential, that  ideally  is the rationale for institutions.

Beyond Vanguard essays by Babalola, one of the strengths of a university is the creation of varieties of learning spaces.

Cambridge university and the city of Cambridge, for example,host conferences  seminars, talks, almost daily round the year, bringing the foremost minds from around the world to Cambridge for any interested person to learn.

Such initiatives require serious money and vision.

I am not able to appreciate a relatively poor man, given the relationship of his wealth to his environment, such as Babalola, insisting on further enriching a person already rich in all particulars.

If the Americans refused to maximise contributions to their own universities which were   primitive places when England and Germany had already reached great heights in academia, the US would not be the academic powerhouse it is today.

Beyond those discrete glories of Babalola's university,it takes many years of all round development to create and sustain a great university.

I am not able to see why that African development centre he is  funding at the University of London could not have been housed in his own university.

What this means is that Kings College, London, and the University of London network will be immensely boosted by this infusion of cash,   vision and patronage from the various stakeholders of this initiative. 

London too will benefit from the money spent there by all those people.

The tradition of Africans needing to go outside Africa for  maximal educational empowerment will be further sustained.

External exposure can be great but why must practically all the best learning opportunities, even about Africa, continue to be outside Africa?

Thanks

Toyin

On Mon, 3 Apr 2023, 5:08 pm 'Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth' via USA Africa Dialogue Series, <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Toyin Adepoju  the  words of  wisdom that Chief Afe BabalolaSAN  shares every week in his columns  in vanguard  and   nigerian tribune in my own opinion are worth more than the 10 milion pounds  he donated to kings college. money is not the only currency so we should not be distracted by the ten milion pounds. we have already been told that when an elder dies in africa  whole libraries are lost  and so what we should be trying to do is harvest what Papa Afe babalola has strored in his brain and stocked in his physical library.

at  94 years he is stil writing meaningfully and heavily supporting the staff at the Afe babalola universty and specialist state of the art 400 bed hospital with the result that they are winning global awards, the highest prizes in their categories/  what i understand  by papas action is a staggerd strategy, immediate term, intermediate term and long term.  i can see the immediate term in the kings college donation.he wants quick results for africa and i can discern long term plans for his own university which has some of the best facilities in the world like the relativlely unreported PLANETARIUM one of the biggest in the world .yes! in EkiT!  so lets give it to Baba. he has done well,

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[Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth]

We need to sort out Nigerian universities before we start injecting serious funds .ther are a lot of dysfunctional ings happning in nigerian universities which have come to light t and these are not due to lack of funds.these dysfunctional  things   have been  the subject of such works as Kolera   Kolej by Femi osofisan,    the naked gods by vincent ike and very recently  lola akande in what it takes.you might also like  to seek wole soyinkas opinion and  That of Professor Jide Osuntokun  via the   Toyin Falola interview series . the prognosis aas we have found is not very encouraging

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

you have a point there, Augustine

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