By Abubakar Imam
In an apparent acknowledgment of the increasingly exciting service delivery of the Director and staff members of the Directorate of Corporate Affairs, University of Ilorin, the Vice Chancellor of African School of Economics (The Pan-African University of Excellence (ASE), Abuja, Prof. Mahfauz Adebola Adedimeji, has commended the pioneering and fascinating efforts of the University in the running and maintenance of successful educational media outfits in Nigeria.
Prof. Adedimeji, who is also the pioneer Vice Chancellor of the Ahman Pategi University, Patigi, gave this commendation in an article titled “50 Facts That Make UNILORIN Fantastic @ 50”, which he dedicated to the celebration of the institution’s Golden Jubilee.
The Vice Chancellor pointed out that “in the media domain, UNILORIN is the first Nigerian University to establish a weekly newsletter that has run consistently for more than one and a half decades”.
He also explained that the University is the first to establish a campus radio station, UNILORIN 89.3 FM, that operates 24 hours a day and seven days a week. The station, which is currently headed by a seasoned broadcaster, Mr Idris Akintola Ibrahim (Aloma), was established in 2009.
Prof. Adedimeji also said that the University of Ilorin remains one of the few universities with an online Television Channel, which is called UNILORIN TV.
The distinguished Professor of English equally said that the University emerged as the institution with the highest engagement on the social media, a performance, which he said, culminated in an award in that category granted by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) at an event held in Abuja earlier in the year.
Prof. Adedimeji, a distinguished alumnus of the University who was also among those recently inaugurated as UNILORIN Ambassadors, recalled that the University was also the first Nigerian University that won the prestigious New Telegraph’s Outstanding University Award in 2023 under the Vice Chancellorship of Prof. Wahab Egbewole, SAN.
The Directorate of Information (which became Directorate of Corporate Affairs in 2011), which incorporates all the four media outfits, was established in 1999 by the administration of the 6th Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Shuaibu Oba AbdulRaheem, OFR, and strengthened by subsequent administrations headed by Prof. Shamusudeen O. O. Amali, OON; Prof. Is’haq Olanrewaju Oloyede, CON; Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali, OON; Prof. Sulyman Age Abdulkareem, FNSE; and the incumbent, Prof. Wahab Olasupo Egbewole, SAN.
The award-winning Directorate, whose operations and organisational structures have been consistently commended by stakeholders and understudied by several universities and institutions of higher learning across Nigeria, was initially headed by the then Mr (now Prof.) Isiaka Zubair Aliagan, who piloted its affairs from 1999 to 2008. Prof. Aliagan, prior to his engagement by the University, served as Editor of the Kwara State Government-owned The Herald newspaper after several years of services in the flagship of the Nigerian press, The Guardian.
Prof. Adedimeji, a renowned wordsmith and outstanding author, who, as at the time, was also a lecturer at the University’s Department of English, headed the professional Directorate between 2008 and 2012 while its current head, who is also its first substantive Director, is a seasoned journalist and consummate Public Relations practitioner, Mr Kunle Akogun. Mr Akogun has competently headed the Unit since 2012, which has made him to work with the institution’s four successive Vice Chancellors, Prof. Oloyede, Prof. Ambali, Prof. Abdulkareem and the incumbent, Prof. Egbewole.
