Olawoyin hails two UNILORIN dons on professorial elevation
By Mubarak Oladosu
The Business and Economy Editor of one of Nigeria’s foremost online newspapers, Premium Times, Mr Oladehinde Olawoyin, has eulogised Prof. Rasaq Adisa and Prof. Patrick Udende, both of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Ilorin.
In an article, published in The cable newspaper edition of Wednesday, May 27, 2026 and titled “In Praise of UNILORIN’s Professors of Peace”, Mr Olawoyin noted that while Prof. Adisa did not teach him in the classroom, he observed that the don embodies peace both in character, and as an ideal that arouses his academic curiosity.
Mr Olawoyin, who bagged a First Class in Mass Communication at the University in 2016, and has traversed diffrent specialisations in print journalism, leaving remarkable footprints in his track over the last decade, recalled that Prof. Adisa was away for further studies when he enrolled at the University as a fresher, nonetheless, the don played a prominent role in making a campus journalist out of him.
He also recalled that Prof. Adisa was instrumental to the success of the student led newspaper publication, “UNILORIN Watch” by never abandoning the paper and its student editors and reporters, even while he was away on study leave.
According to Mr Olawoyin, “so passionate was he about the paper that he was always in constant communication with everyone, providing guidance and leadership on key editorial decisions”.
He similarly celebrated Prof. Udende whom he described as a Professor of Peace for his skills in easily disarming the most combative of adversaries with his gentility and calm demeanour.
Mr Olawoyin also recounted the disciplinarian dispositions of the don, which he encountered firsthand when he taught his class a course related to Film, Cinema and Literature.
Describing Prof. Udende, who currently heads the Department, as an enigma, Mr Olawoyin said, “he was a man of very few words known for his principled, meticulous and disciplined mannerisms’’. He added that ‘‘students generally like to quickly navigate their ways out of a course, and when a lecturer pays too much attention to details and challenges them to deliver beyond the bare minimum, they tend to grumble. And so if you aren’t discerning enough, you’d mistake him for being “too formal”, too meticulous, too disciplined. But upon closer interactions, you wouldn’t find a friendlier, more jovial advisor elsewhere.”
He also appreciated the don for paying close attention to his students and appreciated him for the pieces of advice he dishes out towards the success of his students.
Mr Olawoyin has been consistent in deploying his strong voice in contemporary Nigerian media landscape to amplifying the strides of his alma mater through similar tributes, he had written in the past to honour individuals like the Vice Chancellor of the African School of Economics (Pan-African University of Excellence), Prof. Mahfouz Adebola Adedimeji; the current Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Information Sciences, Prof. Saudat Sallah AbdulBaqi; and the immediate past Dean of the Faculty, Prof Luqman Azeez, among others.
