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One of the foremost evangelists and preachers of the gospel that emanated from the African continent was Ajayi Crowther, a young man who fell victim to the slave trade. He was a linguist, clergyman and the first African bishop of the Anglican Church in West Africa. He and his family were captured by slave traders when he was about 12 years old. This reportedly took place during the Yoruba civil wars, notable the Owu wars of 1821-1829, where his village Osoogun in present-day Oyo State was ransacked in March 1821. Ajayi was later sold to slave traders, said to be Portuguese, who put him on board to be transported across the Atlantic. He has a long history that space and focus debar us from telling here but the critical thing is that he was freed from slavery by the Royal Navy’s West African Squadron, which was enforcing the British ban against the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The liberated people were resettled in Sierra Leone. While in Sierra Leone, he was cared for by the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) and was taught English. He was said to be exceptionally brilliant. There, he adopted the name Samuel and became a Christian. He worked an evangelist and was later ordained a priest.
The story of Samuel Ajayi Crowther is that of one of the most impactful evangelists in Africa who took the gospel to many parts of the nation and translated the Bible into many Nigerian languages. In the pendency of his bishopric, he was betrayed and lies were told to discredit him. Playwright Femi Osofisan captured this in his play with “Ajayi Crowther” as title and I hope it will be adapted into a movie someday. He passed away with a broken heart but he Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has done well to immortalize a man who was outstanding in the dissemination of the gospel. The Church has set up a school of missions in Osoogun, hometown of the great evangelist. Many schools have been named after Ajayi Crowther. But the biggest is Ajayi Crowther University, founded from the ashes of the great St. Andrew’s College, Oyo.
The university, located in the famous town of Oyo, was granted license as a private university on January 7, 2005, and opened its doors for academic activities the next year. The university has not looked back ever since. Three vice-chancellors have completed their tenures in that place, namely, Professor Olaniran Olajire, Ven. Professor Kolawole Jaiyeoba, and Rt. Rev. Professor Dapo F. Asaju. All these vice-chancellors added their own building blocks to the university. Professor Dapo F. Asaju did his best in making infrastructure available in the university: building the largest hall in the university, establishing new programmes and many others.
When Professor Asaju completed his five-year tenure, the Governing Council offered to give him another tenure but he declined, stating that he would not break the rule of single tenure for university vice-chancellor’s as proposed by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) where he used to be an activist when he was at the Lagos State University. The rule did not necessarily affect private universities where the laws establishing them could be amended to tamper with the single tenure clause. The move may have been propelled by the fear that it may be difficult to get another person that could match his pace.
But the university was founded by people who believe in the efficacy of prayers, which was why a group in the university consistently prayed for a suitable replacement on his exit. The coming of the fourth and current vice-chancellor, Professor Timothy Abiodun Adebayo, is a clear testament that prayer is efficacious. Professor Adebayo is the fourth VC and he has etched his name indelibly in the sands of time in the university.
He mounted the saddle in the midst of the dreaded COVID but he weathered the storm. His imprint in the university has become evidently indelible. Several infrastructural facilities in the university can rightly be credited to his tenure. As the university begins its 16th convocation this weekend with a thanksgiving service, some new projects would be inaugurated. The VC would once again take some accolades for leading the university to greater heights. He literarily cleared the debts he met, and from the look of things, would not leave the university in any kind of debts when he exits next October.
A new hostel is coming on stream to alleviate the accommodation challenges the university has faced with exponential admission figures that have greeted his coming into office. The population explosion, as it were, followed the introduction of new programmes such as Nursing, Medical Laboratory Science, Radiology and Radiation Science, Agriculture, Architecture, Surveying, Agriculture and several other postgraduate programmes introduced by the university under his watch. Professor Adebayo has achieved so much within the pendency of his tenure that the space here would not be enough to list them. New lecture rooms named after the legal luminary, Chief Dr. Wole Olanipekun, SAN. A welcome centre, professorial office complex, university lecture rooms, new duplex accommodation for registrar and busar,and several other buildings will stand as the legacies of his administration.
As the university begins its 16th convocation, to climax oh 27 and 28th November, Professor Timothy Adebayo would be doing his last convocation in the saddle and would hold his head high as one of those who have helped to preserve the legacies of Ajayi Crowther.
