(Prof. Wande Abimbola is a former VC of OAU Ife):
1. "I was admitted to the University College, Ibadan, now University of Ibadan, in 1959. I was a state scholar. At the time, the best students in each faculty enjoyed full scholarship. They would also pay stipend to your parents and three children. That's was in the colonial times. I studied History." Very interesting!
2. "One of my classmates was Prof Oloruntimeyin. Before my final examinations, there was an advertisement for the employment of a junior research fellow in Yoruba study at the University. Yoruba as a course was not available at the time. When Oloruntimeyin saw the advert, he advised me to go for it and I was selected.
One of the criteria for the appointment was a Master's degree certificate in either divinity, anthropology, English or literature. I was not qualified in any way. A week before the interview, the director of the Institute of African Studies, the late Prof R.G Armstrong, dropped a note in my pigeon hole at Melamby Hall. He wanted to see me. When I got there, he said he saw my application and asked why I applied when I did not even have a first degree. After more than one hour discussion, he was impressed with me and said he would short-list me. There were 11 people who had Master's degree that were invited. I was called in first. When I discovered that the interviewers did not know anything about the subject, the session became a lecture and I lectured them. Four days later, I got a letter of appointment and a note to choose an accommodation among the houses available on the campus. That was how I became a junior research fellow in Yoruba Studies even before I wrote my final first degree examination" Very interesting!!.
3. "I went to Lagos twice in danfo (commercial bus) as a senator. On one occasion, I sat in the front seat. We entered Lagos at 5.30am. In the bus, people were talking about me. They said that I went to Abuja and I returned a poor man taking taxis each time I went out. One of them said that people like me who could not steal should not be voted for.
When the bus stopped, I looked back and greeted them. I introduced myself to them and they were shocked. The people make the politicians thieves. I don't cherish material things. My father built the house I live in in 1918 after he returned from the World War. I only built more houses in the compound to be comfortable. That is all I have." Prof. Wande Abimbola was the Senate Leader between November 1992 and November 1993 before late Sanni Abacha regime ousted National Assembly.
Very interesting with great lessons to learn!!!.
Source: Facebook
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