The Chief of Staff to the Governor of Osun State, Dr Charles Akinola has commended the University of Ibadan for sustaining its vibrant intellectual tradition.
Akinola made this known on Tuesday as the Chairman of the 2019 Convocation Fine Arts Exhibition hosted by the University’s Institute of African Studies through the Cornelius Adepegba Museum of African Arts.
“The University of Ibadan remains the benchmark of intellectual life in Nigerian society. It sets the standard for all the other universities in the country”, he asserted.
He said the exhibition ceremony, now in its 11th year, among other achievements, attests to UI’s leading role as a foremost Institution where the culture of rigorous and critical interrogation of society’s challenges have been sustained.
“I consider it a great service to society that the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, has sustained the Convocation Exhibition as an aspect of this University’s anniversary celebration, providing both graduating students and those celebrating with them something to excite their imaginations and provoke their thoughts. It is a fitting way to mark festivities of this magnitude”.
Commending UI for this year’s Founder’s Day and Convocation Ceremony, Akinola, a notable art collector who was also honoured at the exhibition ceremony for his contribution to the development of arts and culture in the country, said the event provides an opportunity for the premier university an opportunity to announce and celebrate its best and brightest achievements.
“Such a ceremony provides the University with an opportunity to show to the society what it has done in the lives of the students who came into it as novices. But beyond that, it is also a ceremony of culture. The University of Ibadan understands the cultural importance of this season, and we can all see this understanding demonstrated in its Annual Convocation Fine Art Exhibition, which is in its eleventh edition”, said the former UI don.
Themed ‘Current Rhythm’, the exhibition had works of remarkable sculptor, Adeola Balogun, on display, and curated by Professor Pogoson, a former IAS Director.
Akinola, who was visibly delighted to be back on the UI campus where he had his post graduate studies and also lectured for a decade, underscored the importance of art to the society as a tool of reflection and introspection.
He said, “The place of art in social life would ordinarily not require any justification, insofar as we can claim that art is one of the attributes of our humanity. It gives us pleasure and can also disturb us. The disturbance of art can be one of those ways through which the society reflects on itself, considers its options, and projects its future”.
“The works on display give aesthetic pleasure. They are products of wonder. We cannot doubt that they came from the hands of a master. We would want to own them, being confident that they will strike whoever beholds them with the force of their beauty.
“Adeola Balogun is of that school of production that considers nothing to be waste, that sees the good that can be processed out of things that others have thrown away. On the other hand, these works engage topical issues, for this is an artist who treats socially conscious themes in his works, and in doing this, he provokes us to think along with him”, Akinola noted.
With a role call of outstanding works on display that reflected and interrogated existential challenges in the society, guests in attendance such as the Professor Jaiyeoba, who was the representative of UI’s Vice Chancellor, Elepe of Epe, Oba Adewale Osiberu, Alaperu of Iperu, Oba Idowu Adeleke Basibo, renowned writer and columnist, Tunde Fagbenle and many others, were astonished by the sheer aesthetics and messages evoked by the art works made from discussed objects and materials.
Packaged by Blessing Donatus
