All roads led to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway Campus of the First Technical University on Friday, March 31, 2023 as the pioneering citadel of technical knowledge in Nigeria held another convocation ceremony for its graduating students.Â
This time around, exactly165 students graduated with 24 of them bagging the highly desired ‘First Class’.
It can be said that this educational project was not really given a chance to survive when it was ‘jump started’ by the administration of the then governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi some seven years ago.
The now deceased former governor had a clear-cut vision and he did not waste time pondering or giving undue attention to the enormous challenges ahead. He took the bull by the horn by appointing Professor Ayobami Salami, a man who was, at that time ‘played out of the game’ after qualifying to become the Vice Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife.
Ajimobi saw the star in the scholar and promptly engaged him to be the first Vice Chancellor of the University.
Between the duo, and, perhaps, out of foresight-ness, they decided to open up the Main Campus and take off from there despite the fact that it was in a deep forest and exactly out of town.
At the end of the day, this decision has been paying off because funds for starting from a ‘temporary site’ have now been used to put up permanent structures for the institution.
The main icing on the cake for the founding fathers, the pioneering staff members and students is that the institution is now living up to its billing as a truly technical citadel of knowledge that produces graduates that are potential employers of labour.
Stories about the feats being achieved by the graduates of the school are every where. Some of them become fully employed while still in school.
In addition, the institution ensures that all the students, after matriculation are encouraged to pick a vocation, from brick-laying, to house painting, to repair of automobiles and others. The students are thus given thorough tutelage concerning this and on the day of graduation, the student has two solid qualifications – he or she, for example, becomes a knowledgeable auto mechanic as well as a graduate of Mechanical Engineering – depending on the discipline he or she was admitted to study initially. In addition, French and English languages are compulsory courses to be passed.
For now, both the present Vice Chancellor, Professor Adesola Ajayi and the incumbent governor of the owner state of Oyo, Engineer ‘Seyi Makinde have so much to do to ensure that the silent technological revolution being carried out at Tech-U is finally acknowledged and announced to the world at large.
Long live Oyo State, Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
PS
It was at the institution’s second convocation ceremony that the Visitor to the school and Governor of Oyo State, Engineer ‘Seyi Makinde, in his wisdom, announced a change of name – pronounced that it will now be referred to as Senator Abiola Ajimobi First Technical University.
This Publisher’s Intro was written and published in our sister publication, Parrot Xtra Magazine some 24 hours before the pleasantly shocking announcement by the Oyo State Governor.Â
