Honour for the ‘Father of ACEs in Nigeria’

No fewer than 150 participants, drawn from 22 Africa Centres of Excellence across West and Central Africa, converged on Lagos, recently, for the 10th ACE Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting and the 7th Regional ACE Project Workshop. The meetings were held to review the Project, identify the successes and challenges, and chart the course for the future.

One of the highlights of the Workshop, was the dinner, held in honour of the immediate past Executive Secretary of NUC, Professor Julius A. Okojie, OON.

Described by one of the speakers at the dinner as ‘the Father of ACEs in Nigeria’, Professor Okojie, it was, who received the World Bank team in July, 2012, to brainstorm on Nigeria’s participation in the then proposed Regional Higher Education Africa Centres of Excellence Project, targeted at universities with strong postgraduate training and research in Africa.

A lot of activities followed this initial discussion, with the World Bank undertaking a mission to Nigeria, from 5 to 7 November, 2012, to seek government’s interest and feedback on the proposed Project, discuss implementation arrangements for Nigeria, consult with and inform Nigerian universities about the Project as well as consult with other development partners.

Following the call for proposals in July 2013, NUC played a key role in sensitising and facilitating the participation of Nigerian universities, leading to their submission of a total of 51 proposals. Again, the Commission set up the machinery and supervised the process of further streamlining the proposals after which 27 were submitted for the rigorous selection exercise by the Project Steering Committee.

The 27 represented 52.94 percent of the total proposals received and at the end of the exercise Nigeria won 10 out the 19 Centres that were selected (The Centres have since grown to 22 across West and Central Africa). From then on, the rest is an unfolding history. Today, the Secretariat of the ACE Project in Nigeria, which coordinates the Centres, is at NUC. Significantly, NUC resolved at the beginning that the call for proposals be extended to all universities (Federal, State and Private).  The results coming out of the Centres in Private and State Universities show that the decision to include them was a wise one after all. Speakers at the dinner reflected on some of the above and more.

… and to the Executive Secretary, NUC, Professor Abubakar A. Rasheed

From Professor Rasheed, who was the Vice-Chancellor of Bayero University, Kano, when its Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA) made the selection and has continued to give a good account of itself; to the Vice-Chancellors of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Professor Ibrahim Garba; University of Port Harcourt, Professor Ndowa E. S. Lale and Redeemer’s University, Ede, Professor Z. Debo Adeyewa as well as other officials of the World Bank and the ACEs in Nigeria, everyone had a kind word for Professor Okojie. They thanked him for initiating the establishment of the ACEs and his contribution to the growth of university education in Nigeria, including the establishment of many private universities.

It was Professor Rasheed’s night too, as the guests also had kind words for the Executive Secretary who, since his assumption of office, in August, 2016, took off from where Professor Okojie stopped and had pursued the realisation of the ACE Project objectives with vigour. His support for the Project has been total. This explained why, even after streamlining NUC’s Accreditation and Resource Verification activities to hold twice and thrice a year, respectively, Professor Rasheed ensured a special time-table for the ACEs, such that the resource verification, accreditation and audit of their programmes were concluded in March, 2017. With this, all the 79 programmmes that scaled the national accreditation hurdle are now set for international accreditation.

In all, the speakers thanked both the former and incumbent Executive Secretaries for their leadership, vision, passion, focus and knowledge of the Nigerian education system, after which gifts were presented to them.

In his response, Professor Okojie, who was accompanied by his sons (Messrs. Oluwatosin and Eromosele Okojie and their spouses), thanked the organisers for honouring him. He expressed happiness at the progress being made by the Centres and urged them to give due consideration to the sustainability of the ACE Project beyond World Bank’s support, recommending counterpart funding as one of the ways of ensuring this.

Also responding, Professor Rasheed, in his characteristic humility, insisted that the event was “Professor Julius A. Okojie’s show” and that he would have loved to hand his own gifts over to him. His words: “we are here to honour one person and he is Professor Okojie. This is your day. We will continue to respect you. We are happy for you and proud of what you have done. We thank you for going back to the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta to teach (after your tenure of office).”

Images from dinner in honour of Professor Julius A. Okojie

Prof. Julius A. Okojie
L-R: Prof. Okojie’s sons, Messers. Eromosele and Oluwatosin Okojie, with their wives, at the dinner
R-L: Prof. Rasheed , Mr. Blom, Prof. Okojie, Mal. Hamza and Dr. Atah
Secretaries now and then, (L-R), Profs. Ehile, Rasheed and Okojie
Deputy Centre Leader, ACENTDFB, Prof. Yke Ibrahim
Profs. Rasheed and Okojie with some officials of the World Bank
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