Hon. Dr Bode Ayorinde, Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council, Achievers University, Owo, has expressed the confidence of the Council in Professor Samuel Aje, new Vice-Chancellor of the University, to move the institution toward the realization of its vision to be the best University in Africa and one of the best in the world. According to him, by the end of Professor Aje’s tenure, the University would be among the top five universities in Nigeria.
The founder and visionary of the University said this at a brief event marking Professor Aje’s assumption of duties as the third Vice-Chancellor of the 12-year-old institution on Wednesday, 1st July 2020. Ayorinde, who described Aje as “a leader of the team”, said, “I’m optimistic that the University will benefit immensely from the wide experience of Aje, a Professor of French and Applied Linguistics and two-term Director-General of Nigeria French Village, Badagry, Lagos.”
Prof. Aje’s predecessor, Engr. Prof. Tunji Ibiyemi, second Vice-Chancellor of the University, while handing over the baton of leadership to his successor, was grateful to the Dr Ayorinde-led Council of the University for giving him the opportunity to reach the pinnacle of his career and contribute his quota towards the realization of the University’s vision. He thanked the staff and students for their support and co-operation throughout his six-year tenure. He implored them to extend similar gesture to Aje, whom he prayed would “geometrically” surpass his achievement records.
The Pro-Chancellor announced, to the delight of the members of the University community at the event, that Professor Ibiyemi had been appointed a visiting professor in the College of Engineering and Technology to nurture the college he midwifed to maturity. “We must all join hands to put in place an institution that will survive all of us so that history will have a place for us in the institution,” he added.
Speaking at the event, Aje thanked Ayorinde and the Council for finding him worthy of the appointment as third Vice-Chancellor of the institution. While committing “all activities to the hands of God, Who will continue to guide and protect us”, Aje, who has been a member of Council since its establishment in 2008, said he was comforted with the fact that there was a strong team on the ground that had laid a solid foundation for him to build on.
Aje canvassed the support of the University community as “we are at a point of moving at top speed”. He urged them to accept him as a member of the team because “the joy of achievement is for all”. He stressed the fact that current COVID-19 pandemic had changed a lot of things, and “we must start doing things differently and leverage the situation”. “I have come to offer myself as part of your team. As a team, we can move mountains, increase our speed and think outside the box. Come let’s reason together,” he said.