Campus News

UNILORIN @50

Faculty of Life Sciences to empower 50 student entrepreneurs

By Abubakar Imam

As part of efforts targeted at marking the upcoming Golden Jubilee of the University of Ilorin, the Faculty of Life Sciences has concluded arrangements for the empowerment of 50 of its students to enable them pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.

The Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Rotimi Olusanya Arise, disclosed this last Monday (May 5, 2025) while speaking with UNILORIN Bulletin in his office.

While also promising to mobilise the alumni of the Faculty towards ensuring their functional participation in the anniversary celebration, the Dean explained that the proposed empowerment scheme would consist of skills, tools and financial support that would help the beneficiaries to develop their entrepreneurial wherewithal.

Prof. Arise, who is the 7th Dean of the Faculty, said that his Faculty is prepared to key-in into various activities lined up for the University’s Golden Jubilee in addition to other events that it is working on.

The Dean explained that the beneficiaries of the empowerment scheme would be drawn from the five Departments of the Faculty namely; Biochemistry, Microbiology, Plant Biology, Zoology and Optometry and Vision Sciences, saying that the scheme would be targeted at brilliant but indigent students who are also imbued with entrepreneurial skills.

He added that as a mark of its preparation for the upcoming celebration, the Faculty has been using letterhead papers branded with the University Golden Jubilee anniversary logo since January, saying that all internal and external written communications of the Faculty have the full imprint of the anniversary logo as a way of advertising the upcoming event.

Prof. Arise, who said that some staff of the Faculty have a number of patented intellectual products to the glory of the University, described the upcoming anniversary as a celebration of monumental research excellence and exemplary hard work, which would also be marked by the presentation of the Dean’s Prizes and Awards to the best researcher, lecturer, student and administrative staff of the Faculty.

The Dean, who described himself as a “full-blooded product of the University”, also said that the Faculty would also activate the Memoranda of Understanding it previously signed with the College of Albany, United States of America, and the University of West England, United Kingdom. He said that the two are targeted at enhancing the internationalisation drive of the University and particularly for the benefit of the students of the Faculty.

He explained that as an integral part of one of the founding Faculties of the University, his Faculty has every reason to be part of the celebration of the 50 years of remarkable existence of the University as he said that it has contributed to making the University worthy of being celebrated

               Prof. Arise noted that ten of the Inaugural Lectures delivered at the University since 2014 were from his Faculty. Each of these lectures, according to him, has not only deepened learning but also added impetus to the alluring positive image of the University as a centre of academic excellence.

He added that the Faculty has produced some of the most outstanding products of the University who are making waves in various realms of human endeavours within and outside Nigeria.

               Speaking further on the products of his Faculty, the Dean said that the Faculty is proud of all those who got their academic training in all its Departments. He said that since the level of success of any institution of learning is usually evaluated by the impacts of its alumni, Prof. Arise remarked that his Faculty has done very well considering the quality and contributions of its alumni and staff members to human development over the years.

He noted that his Faculty and specifically the Department of Biochemistry has produced three distinguished Fellows of the Nigerian Academy of Science in Prof. Musibau Adewumi Akanji, Prof. Musa Toyin Yakubu, and Prof. Temidayo Oladiji.

Prof. Arise, who also teaches at the Department of Biochemistry, said that the current Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Mrs Kemi Nandap, is a product of the Faculty and specifically that of the Department of Biochemistry. He opined that Mrs Nandap, who is the first head of a paramilitary agency produced by the University of Ilorin, has been making the University very proud with her inspirational leadership in the NIS and the society at large.

He added that the former Director-General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, also graduated from the Faculty just as Prof. Ezekiel Adebiyi, who is the President of the Nigerian Society of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology.

Other outstanding products of the Faculty, according to the Dean, also include the Global Programme Director, D-8 Health and Social Protection Programme, Mrs Ado J. G. Muhammad; the Technical Manager/Assistant Vice President, Nestle and several others.

Prof. Arise also said that some of the products of the Faculty who took appointment at the University have been among staff members of the University who have won venerations such as the immediate past Dean of Student Affairs of the University, Prof. Musa Toyin Yakubu; a former Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Patricia Folake Omajasola; and himself, saying that it is significant that they all received their academic degrees from the University. He added that many other alumni of the Faculty are also doing very well as lecturers and researchers in the University and sister universities as well as in various research outfits across the world.

While noting that one of the three Emeritus Professors recently appointed by the authorities of the University, Prof. Musibau Adewumi Akanji, was a teacher at the Faculty, he also said that Prof. Akanji had previously done the University proud as the pioneer Vice Chancellor of Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, and as a former Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna.

Other former and serving Vice Chancellors produced by the Faculty, according to Prof. Arise, are Prof. Hussein O. B. Oloyede, who served as the pioneer Vice Chancellor of the Fountain University, Osogbo, and the Summit University, Offa, and Prof. K. T. Eniola, who after serving as the Vice Chancellor of Joseph Ayo Babalola University was appointed into the same position at the Kogi State University, Kabba; and the incumbent Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Prof. Temidayo Oladiji.

Prof. Arise congratulated the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Wahab Olasupo Egbewole, SAN, and the generality of the University community on the upcoming celebration as he assured him that staff, students and alumni of his Faculty would continue to make the University very proud before and after the celebration.