The University of Ibadan (UI) is the oldest Nigerian university, and is located five miles (8 kilometres) from the centre of the major city of Ibadan in Western Nigeria.
Besides the College of Medicine, there are now 11 other faculties: Arts, Science, Agriculture and Forestry, Social Sciences, Education, Veterinary Medicine, Technology, Law, Public Health, and Dentistry. The university has residential and sports facilities for staff and students on campus, as well as separate botanical and zoological gardens. In September 2016, it became the first Nigerian university to make the top 1000 in Times Higher Education rankings. Prior to that, it had always made the top African 10 in Webometrics Rankings. Its management envision the UI becoming on of the top 100 universities in the world in the nearest future.
History
The origins of the university are in Yaba College, founded in 1932 in Yaba, Lagos,as the first tertiary educational institute in Nigeria. Yaba College was transferred to Ibadan, becoming the University College of Ibadan, in 1948. The university was founded on its own site on 17 November 1948. In late 1963, on the university playing-fields, with a celebration marked by talking drums, the Rt. Hon. Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, first Prime Minister of independent Nigeria, became the first Chancellor of its independent university. The first Nigerian vice-chancellor of the university was Kenneth Dike, after whom the University of Ibadan's library is named.
Administration
The current principal members of the university administration are:
Faculties
In August 2011 Ruqayyah Ahmed Rufa'i, the Nigerian Minister of Education, announced that the University of Ibadan would host the Nigerian node of the Pan-African University, the Institute of Earth and Life Sciences.
The College of Medicine is located about five kilometres from the main university, within the structure of The University College Hospital. It has a dormitory for students who are in their clinical years of study in the college. It became a college in August 1980 and the provosts have been Oluwole Akande, Isaac Folorunso Adewole, and Akinyinka Omigbodun.
Following the non-accreditation of Pharmacy course in the University of Ibadan by the National Universities Commission, NUC, the premier university has announced that it would not admit students for the course for 2017/2018 session.
The Faculty of Pharmacy could not meet up with the requirements for accreditation; hence the accreditation panel which recently visited the institution suspended the accreditation for the faculty
Centres
- The Distance Learning Centre
Units
- The Registry
- The Bursary
- Careers Placement and Counselling Unit
- Foreign Students Unit
- The Sports Council
- The Library
- The Computing Centre
- The Press
- The Bookshop
- The Botanical Garden
- The Zoological Garden
- University Media Centre, which houses the campus radio station, DIAMOND 101.1 FM.
- The Abadina Media Resource Centre
- Advancement Centre
- The University Health Services
- Works and Maintenance
- Academic Planning
- Internal Audit
Halls of residence
The university is primarily residential with magnificent halls of residence for male and female students. There is provision for the accommodation of post-graduate students. There are internet cafés, Knowledge Hubs, cafeterias, laundry centres, mini-marts, press boards, common-rooms, gymnasia (in some halls), kitchenettes, etc. There is impressive water and electricity supply. Electricity supply is also augmented by the inverter system. Football, table tennis and lawn tennis are sports often played and watched by students.
The Halls of Residence are semi-autonomous. Each Hall of Residence has a Management Committee, which is responsible for matters of general policy for the social, cultural and intellectual activities of the Hall. The Management Committee is given powers to arrange its own social, cultural and intellectual activities designed to preserve, develop and enrich the traditions of the Hall and make life in the Hall generally interesting and worthwhile. The Management Committee consists of the Hall Master/Mistress, the Hall Warden and Assistant Wardens, the Hall Supervisor and the Hall Executives, which consists of students who are elected every session by the students of each hall to handle internal student matters, as well as act as an intermediary between the Hall Administration and the generality of students.
Accommodation in the Halls range from one to four persons per room. The halls are:
- Mellanby Hall (male, undergraduate). Location: to the North of the University Court. The first residential hall in the university, named after Kenneth Mellanby, the first Principal of University College, Ibadan (1947â€"53). Mellanby has a characteristically cool and serene ambience. It was formally opened on 17 November 1952, and has a capacity for well over 400 students.The hall is essentially the smallest in the school, possessing four blocks â€" A, B, C and D. The A block is primarily for freshmen while the D block houses students in their final year. The hall is the most centrally located, and hence sees a great daily traffic of people.
It has a cafeteria, a common room for relaxation, a small football field and a volleyball court. Th hall also has clubs such as The Literary and Debating Club and a press organization. The Mellanby Hall Press Organization is arguably one of the best in the school, and has in recent years won the award for the best press organization, awarded by The Union of Campus Journalists, the school's highest press body.
- Queen Elizabeth II Hall (female, undergraduate). Location: along Oduduwa Road. The first female hall, it is named after Queen Elizabeth II, who visited the University of Ibadan in February, 1956 and performed the formal opening ceremony of the Hall. It has a capacity of over 650 students.
- Tedder Hall (male, undergraduate). Location: to the west of the University Court and adjacent to Mellanby Hall
- Sultan Bello Hall (male, undergraduate)
- Kuti Hall (male, undergraduate)
- Queen Idia Hall (female, undergraduate)
- Obafemi Awolowo Hall (female, undergraduate). Represents the biggest hall in the University of Ibadan and, arguably, the biggest in the rest of west Africa.
- Nnamdi Azikiwe Hall (male, undergraduate). Commonly known as Zik Hall, and its occupants as Zikites. It accommodates 999 students every session and it is normally referred to as the Heartbeat of the University of Ibadan. It is also known as the Baluba Republic and shares a long-standing rivalry with Independence Hall. It is located on El-Kanemi Road just before Independence Hall. Zik Hall is well known for its "Aroism" â€" an avenue where Zikites make gest of themselves and other non-residents especially females.
- Independence Hall (male, undergraduate).
Location: at the end of El-Kanemi Road. "The Republic of Katanga", as it is fondly called, was formally opened in 1961, in commemoration of Nigeria's attainment of Independence on 1 October 1960. Members are known as "Katangites". It is also regarded as the "Only Living Hall In UI", in reference to the fact that it is named after Nigeria's independence, which is still "living". It has a capacity of about 1000 students.
- Tafawa Balewa Hall (mixed, postgraduate).
- Alexander Brown Hall (mixed, clinical medical, dental and physiotherapy students).
Location: in the College of Medicine campus at the University College Hospital, Ibadan
- Abdulsalam Abubakar Hall (mixed, postgraduate).
The designs of the halls are deliberately not identical. For example, the older halls - Mellanby, Tedder, Kuti, Sultan Bello and Queen Elizabeth II halls - were designed by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew who, in appreciation of their contribution to the physical development of the University were honoured with honorary degrees in 1965. Messrs Watkins Gray and Partners designed Alexander Brown Hall as a part of the overall design of the University College Hospital Complex. The two undergraduate halls, Independence and Nnamdi Azikiwe Halls, were designed by Messrs Design Group (Nigeria) Ltd. Obafemi Awolowo Hall was designed by Allied Group of Architects, while Tafawa Balewa and Idia Halls were designed by Messrs Aderele-Omisore-Adebanjo Associates. The Federal Ministry of Works designed the Abdusalami Abubakar Hall. Students are usually very passionate about their respective halls.
Notable alumni
See also Category:University of Ibadan alumni
- John Omoniyi Abiri
- Sadique Abubakar, Chief of Air Staff
- Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart
- Adiele Afigbo, Nigerian historian, the first person to receive a doctoral degree in History from a Nigerian university
- Jacob Ade Ajayi
- Claude Ake, Professor of Political Economy, international scholar and social crusader
- Stephen Adebanji Akintoye
- Florence Gabrielle Abiola Adeniran, Nigerian surgeon, the first woman to receive a medical degree from a Nigerian university
- Grace Alele-Williams
- Elechi Amadi
- Alexander Animalu, BSc (1962, Mathematics), PhD (1965, Mathematics); Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics; Nigerian National Order of Merit Winner (2000); Director General, National Mathematical Centre, Abuja (1999â€"2001); President, Nigerian Academy of Science (2001â€"02); Researcher, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge (1962â€"65); Research Scientist, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA (1972â€"76); Research Associate, Stanford University, USA (1966â€"67)
- Emeka Anyaoku, former Commonwealth Secretary-General
- Kayode Are, former National Security Adviser and former Director General of the State Security Service
- Ladipo Ayodeji Banjo
- Senator Robert Ajayi Boroffice
- J. P. Clark
- Segun Toyin Dawodu, MD, JD, MBA, LL.M, MS, a physician, attorney, academic, and entrepreneur who established the first website on socio-political issues of Nigeria.
- Kayode Fayemi, former Governor of Ekiti State, Min of Solid Minerals
- Chukwuemeka Ike, writer
- Amadi Ikwechegh
- Abiola Irele
- William Kumuyi, founder and General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry
- Eddie Mbadiwe, Member of the House of Representative
- Epaphras Denga Ndaitwah
- Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
- Femi Osofisan, writer
- Christopher Okigbo
- Isidore Okpewho
- Olufunmilayo Olopade
- Akinyinka Omigbodun
- Michael Omolewa, former President of UNESCO General Conference and Ambassador of Nigeria to UNESCO
- Kole Omotosho
- Gamaliel Onosode
- Niyi Osundare
- Ken Saro-Wiwa
- Wole Soyinka, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature
- Martin I. Uhomoibhi
- Farida Mzamber Waziri
Notable faculty
- Beatrice Aboyade, librarian
- Isaac Folorunso Adewole
- Ladipo Ayodeji Banjo, Professor of English
- Ayo Bamgbose, Professor of Linguistics
- Jacob Ade Ajayi, Professor of History
- F. V. Atkinson, mathematician
- Olumbe Bassir, founding member of Biochemistry and Microbiology departments
- Christine Hamill, mathematician
- Molly Mahood, literary scholar
- Abel Idowu Olayinka
- Michael Omolewa, Professor of History and Adult Education
- Niyi Osundare
- Wole Soyinka
- Grace Oladunni Taylor, biochemist, first African to win a L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science and second female inducted into the Nigerian Academy of Science
- Fabian Udekwu Professor of Surgery, first Nigerian cardiothoracic surgeon
- Duncan White
Notes
References
- Damtew Teferra; et al. (2003). African Higher Education: An International Reference Handbook. Indiana University Press. ISBNÂ 978-0-253-34186-0.Â
Further reading
- Tekena Tamuno (1981). Ibadan Voices: Ibadan University in Transition. Ibadan University Press. ISBNÂ 978-978-121-109-6.Â
External links
- Official webpage
- Forum webpage