After greater than 4 many years in academia and public service, former Vice-Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, Prof. Michael Faborode, recollects his profession, management classes, and the challenges of translating college analysis into sensible options. In this interview with Funmi Ogundare, the professor of Agricultural Engineering, who not too long ago clocked 70, he discusses indigenous know-how, institutional growth, and his plans to advance larger training and innovation. Excerpts:
After over 4 many years in academia and public service, what does retirement imply to you at this level in your life?
To me, retirement means taking a break from all of it, pausing to savour the legacies I’ve left behind, and charting a brand new engagement of stewardship to humanity and humane causes, albeit in much less demanding methods. It has been a busy, continuous, pulsating working lifetime of selfless service. Many had been shocked to realise that I had clocked 70 years. To me actually, the true measure of a lifetime of management is what continues to flourish after a pacesetter leaves workplace or one leaves the scene. Looking again over the numerous seasons of my life, I’ve come to admire that each alternative to study, to train, to lead and to serve has been a part of a a lot bigger journey than I might ever have imagined. Along the way in which, I’ve been formed by outstanding lecturers, impressed by gifted colleagues, inspired by trustworthy mates, and regularly challenged by generations of scholars whose curiosity and aspirations renewed my very own sense of objective. Whatever I’ve been privileged to contribute has at all times been enriched by the lives and contributions of others. The reminiscences I’m forsaking are captured in two books that had been unveiled at my valedictory. Friends, tutorial colleagues, mentees and even senior compatriots, in a single accord, determined to publish a group of reflective essays, in any other case known as a Festschrift, in my honour. It is titled ‘Technology, Leadership and Governance: Reflections in honour of Professor Michael Oladimeji Faborode’. The second ebook, which blends my very own autobiographical reflections with these of some eminent students, is titled ‘A Tall Dream: Knowledge, Leadership, Institutional Transformation and Nation Building’, which traces my life journey from the cradle in my small village of Supare-Akoko in Ondo State to the Vice Chancellor’s workplace at Ife and past. Both are compelling reads, particularly the memoir, and I hope folks will take of their values. In truth, the evolution of the title of the ebook, ‘A Tall Dream ‘ and what the back-cover tree connotes, as narrated within the ebook, are themselves considerably attention-grabbing.
Looking again to your early education, did you ever think about that your journey would lead to turning into an engineer, scholar and college administrator?
That is a really attention-grabbing query. As recorded in ‘A Tall Dream’, probably the most outstanding reminiscence from my years at Victory College, as well as to being a complete faculty providing quite a lot of technical and vocational topics together with technical drawing, wooden and metallic works, and so forth., got here by way of an occasion that appeared fully unusual on the time. In early 1972, the varsity hosted an agricultural present that included an indication of a newly developed yam pounding machine designed by researchers from the University of Ife. As college students, we watched with real curiosity as know-how was utilized to resolve an on a regular basis drawback acquainted to just about each family. The machine attracted widespread consideration as a result of it represented one thing uncommon: an indigenous technological innovation responding straight to native wants. How might I’ve recognized that the inventor of that machine, Prof. Gabriel Ayodele Makanjuola, would later develop into my instructor, mentor, and tutorial supervisor? How might I’ve imagined that I’d ultimately research Agricultural Engineering on the University of Ife, working throughout the very mental custom whose fruits I had witnessed years earlier as a secondary college scholar? Even extra remarkably, I couldn’t have foreseen that my postgraduate journey would later take me to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, the place Prof. Makanjuola himself had obtained his doctoral coaching. I assume Victory College didn’t merely put together me for college; it broadened my creativeness, cultivated my mental self-discipline, and nurtured my behavior of cautious statement. However, I couldn’t have imagined then the thrilling chance that information may very well be utilized to resolve sensible issues affecting unusual folks, nor that of turning into a scholar, not to mention a college administrator, and in the end a vice chancellor. But I can now say that it began from house in Supare. There, I learnt to respect work, worth training, settle for correction, and admire the significance of serving one thing bigger than oneself. The journey that will ultimately lead me into engineering, scholarship, institutional management and public service didn’t start with ambition. It started with formation from house.
What are the three most essential classes you have got learnt out of your 40 years in academia?
There are, in fact, a number of classes, so selecting the three most essential will likely be troublesome. However, if I need to, I’ll determine what has formed my life most profoundly: my time at college. Long earlier than I held management positions, the college formed how I believed, questioned, and understood the world. It taught me that information carries accountability; scholarship finds its highest objective in service; and establishments matter as a result of they protect and transmit values from one era to the subsequent. Over the years, I got here to see the college not merely as an educational group however as one of many nation’s most strategic establishments. Governments might change, financial situations might fluctuate, and applied sciences might evolve, however universities present the continuity by way of which societies renew themselves. They educate future leaders, advance scientific discovery, protect mental traditions and create the concepts that affect public coverage and nationwide growth. Their impression extends far past the boundaries of their campuses as a result of the graduates they produce and the information they generate in the end form each sector of society. My years in college management additionally revealed that this broader mission can’t be fulfilled by way of tutorial excellence alone. Universities should regularly adapt to altering nationwide realities whereas remaining trustworthy to their core values. They should construct partnerships with trade, strengthen analysis ecosystems, embrace innovation and domesticate governance methods that encourage belief. I discovered that institutional transformation requires greater than strategic plans; it requires a shared sense of objective that permits employees, college students and stakeholders to work collectively in pursuit of a typical imaginative and prescient. Hence, universities stay amongst humanity’s biggest establishments as a result of they create one thing that appreciates reasonably than diminishes with time: information. Yet information alone doesn’t rework nations. It should be organised, shared and utilized by way of establishments able to changing concepts into options that enhance society.
If you had the chance to begin your tutorial profession once more, what would you do in another way?
I’ll nonetheless return to learn engineering. My years in engineering have continued to form my perspective on the excellence, integrity, and resilience of human establishments. Engineering taught me that each well-designed system is anticipated to carry out reliably lengthy after its designer has accomplished the work. Success is measured not merely by the brilliance of the unique design however by the system’s capability to proceed functioning successfully underneath altering situations. I recognise that the identical precept applies to establishments. Leadership is most profitable when the buildings, processes and values established throughout one era proceed to strengthen the establishment by way of the subsequent. The final check of institutional design is due to this fact continuity, not character. I additionally got here to perceive that institution-building is essentially an train in persistence. Unlike tasks with clearly outlined completion dates, establishments are by no means really completed. Every era inherits unfinished work, addresses the challenges of its personal time and leaves additional duties for many who observe. This requires humility. No chief accomplishes every thing. No administration resolves each drawback. Our process is just to be sure that the establishment is stronger, wiser and higher ready than it was when accountability was entrusted to us. Progress is due to this fact cumulative, constructed patiently by way of the trustworthy contributions of many people throughout a few years. I thus see engineering not merely as a career, however as a method to perceive society’s challenges and apply information to resolve them. It teaches disciplined pondering, methods evaluation and the sensible software of concepts for human profit. These ideas formed not solely my work as an educational and researcher but additionally my understanding of management, institutional growth and nationwide transformation. I’ll solely be sure that my advocacy for assets to assist institutional progress structurally is extra strident. The world should not tolerate leaders who’re egocentric, self-centred and nationally unpatriotic.
Why do you assume Nigeria has struggled to translate the improvements produced in its universities and analysis establishments into applied sciences that unusual Nigerians can use?
Throughout my profession, I’ve been privileged to work with college students, researchers and colleagues whose ingenuity satisfied me that Nigeria doesn’t undergo from a scarcity of concepts. What has typically restricted our progress is our means to create environments during which these concepts can mature into improvements that strengthen our economies and enhance the lives of our folks. Innovation is due to this fact not merely the product of particular person brilliance; it’s the end result of societies or ecosystems that intentionally spend money on analysis, nurture expertise and supply alternatives for modern concepts to flourish. Indeed, I discover myself crammed with each hope and accountability. Hope, as a result of our nation possesses extraordinary mental expertise, youthful vitality and an abundance of alternatives for scientific and technological development. Responsibility, as a result of these strengths alone won’t safe our future. They should be supported by establishments that encourage discovery, insurance policies that reward innovation and cultures that commemorate creativity, self-discipline and excellence. If my journey has taught me one lesson, it’s that real transformation begins with a change in how we think about ourselves. Nations that consider of their capability to resolve their very own issues are extra possible to spend money on the information, establishments and other people required to achieve this. That is the longer term I’ve at all times hoped for Nigeria: a future constructed on excellence, sustained by integrity, enriched by innovation and guided by a shared dedication to the widespread good. It is a future that calls for a lot of us, however additionally it is a future that I consider stays fully inside our attain. If there’s one lesson I would go away with future students, it’s this: by no means separate information from objective. Let analysis stay rigorous, but additionally related. Let innovation pursue excellence, however let it additionally pursue service. Let universities proceed to defend tutorial freedom whereas embracing their accountability to contribute to society. When these commitments are held collectively, information turns into excess of an mental achievement; it turns into a drive able to remodeling nations and enriching humanity. But information alone can not rework society; Ideas require establishments that may implement them, leaders who can champion them and governance methods that may maintain them. The high quality of our management, the energy of our establishments and the integrity of our public life in the end decide whether or not the fruits of analysis and innovation develop into enduring devices of nationwide growth.
What are the most important challenges presently confronting Agricultural Engineering training and analysis in Nigeria, and the way can Nigerian universities make Agricultural Engineering extra responsive to challenges akin to meals insecurity, mechanisation, post-harvest losses and local weather change?
Over the numerous many years I’ve devoted to agricultural engineering, I’ve develop into more and more satisfied that Nigeria’s (and Africa’s) future will likely be formed, in no small measure, by the way forward for its agriculture and the way it cohabits with rising digital and resilient applied sciences. Throughout my skilled journey, I by no means regarded agriculture merely as a supply of meals or employment. I’ve at all times seen it as the inspiration on which industrial growth, financial resilience, and, in fact, meals safety and social stability could be constructed. Our agricultural methods should be able to responding to altering weather conditions, inhabitants progress, evolving markets and new technological alternatives. This requires investments in analysis, improved infrastructure, expert human capital and establishments that encourage steady innovation. Agriculture can not be seen as a conventional sector standing aside from science and know-how; it has develop into one of many principal arenas during which information is translated into sustainable growth. The curriculum of agricultural engineering in our universities should replicate this holistic imaginative and prescient to be precious to society by producing responsive graduates who will catalyse the transformation of our agriculture amid modern and rising challenges.
What position ought to universities play in growing indigenous applied sciences reasonably than relying closely on imported options?
For me, a know-how’s biggest worth lies not in its sophistication however in its relevance and health for objective. Throughout my profession as an agricultural engineer, I used to be regularly reminded that probably the most profitable applied sciences will not be essentially probably the most superior; they’re those that reply successfully to the wants, assets and circumstances of the folks they’re supposed to serve. Technology turns into transformative when it’s acceptable, accessible and able to enhancing on a regular basis life. This conviction formed a lot of my very own work in engineering and agricultural growth. I by no means regarded know-how as an finish in itself. Rather, I noticed it as an instrument for increasing alternative, rising productiveness and enhancing human well-being. Whether designing gear, supporting analysis or strengthening establishments, I remained satisfied that innovation ought to be guided by the realities of society reasonably than by the attraction of novelty alone. Technologies that can not be adopted, maintained or tailored inside native contexts seldom obtain lasting impression. Our challenges are distinctive, and whereas we’ve got a lot to study from the experiences of different areas, our most enduring options will emerge after we mix international information with native understanding. Technology ought to due to this fact replicate the environments during which folks stay, the assets out there to them and the aspirations they search to fulfil. Development is strengthened when innovation grows from inside reasonably than being imposed from outdoors. As illustrated earlier, the yam-pounding machines signify a responsive know-how that solves home issues.
What had been probably the most troublesome management selections you had to make throughout your profession?
Every chief ultimately encounters moments when precept is examined by circumstance. From my years in college management, I’ve come to recognise that these moments typically reveal extra about management than durations of stability ever can. They require selections which might be seldom easy, the place competing expectations, institutional pressures and public scrutiny converge. There was the case of a high-ranking tutorial employees member accused of plagiarism, that’s, utilizing the work of others with out clear permission or correct acknowledgement. In such circumstances, “authority should never replace due process”. While management inevitably includes making selections, it additionally requires the self-discipline to distinguish between conditions that decision for fast private intervention and those who demand confidence within the establishment’s personal methods. Universities derive a lot of their energy from shared governance, the place accountability is distributed throughout senate, council and different statutory our bodies. Respecting these buildings was not an administrative formality; it was an expression of confidence within the establishment itself. As recorded in ‘A Tall Dream’, ‘an investigative committee was constituted and entrusted with the responsibility of examining the issues before it. From the outset, I considered it essential that the committee should carry out its work without interference from my office. Once its assignment had been completed, its report was submitted through the University’s recognised governance buildings, the place it obtained acceptable consideration earlier than selections had been taken’. Looking again, I stay satisfied that the best service a pacesetter can typically render isn’t to dominate institutional processes however to defend them. Institutions earn legitimacy when their procedures are revered, notably throughout moments of controversy. Another testy second got here when the management of the three mixed unions on campus, together with, surprisingly, the educational employees union (ASUU), conspired to mislead their members into believing there was what they known as a double deduction of pension financial savings. Convinced that nothing was amiss and bolstered by a trusted bursar and bursary employees, I requested that we arrange a committee comprised of the administration and the unions with a membership of six, three from both aspect and headed by their nominee in order that they may management how the investigation was managed. It was unbelievable that they reneged on the committee after realising their insincerity can be uncovered. A pacesetter’s character and integrity should be stable sufficient to face up to challenges to their braveness.
You stated the true measure of management is what continues to flourish after a pacesetter leaves workplace. What do you consider ought to stay as your institutional legacy and what’s the subsequent step for you as you retire from the college?
From the Festschrift in my honour, I’m excited by the beautiful coherence and resonance of views from numerous backgrounds and generations who assert that my institutional legacy can’t be diminished to buildings, workplaces or administrative accomplishments alone; reasonably, the extra enduring legacy lies in stronger tutorial communities, more healthy skilled networks and institutional cultures that proceed to worth excellence, collaboration and repair, and have develop into dwelling legacies as a result of they proceed to specific the beliefs upon which they had been strengthened by way of my exploits. As for my subsequent steps, Nigeria at present has greater than 300 universities. The difficulties they face will not be, for probably the most half, difficulties of expertise; reasonably, they’re difficulties of institutional design, of funding technique, of the affected person and unglamorous work of constructing partnerships, and of the lacking hyperlink between a laboratory bench and the trade that wants what that bench has produced. These are exactly the issues I’ve spent 40 years studying to resolve, one establishment at a time, and I’m not persuaded that the educational ought to retire merely as a result of the person has reached the age at which he should. The MF Centre for Higher Education and Engineering Innovation is established as a working enterprise for that purpose. It will in the end be judged by the establishments it succeeds in strengthening, by the analysis it carries out from the laboratory into trade, and by the younger folks it equips to proceed that work lengthy after these of us who started it have completed. Let me briefly take you again down reminiscence lane: More than 50 years in the past, a boy stood within the grounds of a secondary college, Victory College, in Ikare-Akoko and watched a machine pound yam. He didn’t know the identify of the person who had designed and constructed that machine. He didn’t know that he would at some point research underneath that very same man, nor that he would observe him to the very college in England at which that man had taken his doctorate, nor that he would spend the entire of his working life throughout the mental custom that had produced the machine he was watching. I’ve thought an ideal deal, in these current years, about what that boy was actually watching on that afternoon; he was watching information depart a laboratory and arrive within the lifetime of an unusual family. Everything I’ve tried within the 40 years since has been, in a single kind or one other, an effort to shorten that journey of worthwhile information switch, and to see it made an ideal deal extra typically. That work isn’t completed, and no single lifetime was ever going to show enough to full such a process. But the work is standing, and there are palms ready to carry it additional than I’ve been in a position to carry it myself. It has been the privilege of my era to contribute its chapter. It is now the privilege and accountability of those that observe to write the subsequent.
