Oluwasanmi, almost from the very beginning of his tenure, and which went on for years after him. A large proportion of those who now teach at Ife are the products of Oluwasanmi's development policy and it is they who are still trying bravely, in the face of great odds, to keep the Oluwasanmi spirit alive at Ife. Unfortunately, the programme was killed by the shameful neglect which was the hallmark of the Nigerian university system in the unfortunate days of the eighties. In the heyday of the Staff Development Programme, no less than one hundred Ife alumni were sponsored to study for higher degrees in any given year. Hundreds of alumni benefited from this programme, but the real beneficiary has been the university, which is still enjoying the services of a large number of her scholarship winners. More than his commitment to university administration, CHuwasanmi was fiercely partisan over the issue of academic freedom. It was his of ten-repeated belief that the university required a considerable measure of freedom to discharge its functions. In his address at the university's convocation on 14 October 1972, Professor Oluwasanmi averred that the teacher must be free to teach his subject with out undue interference, either from within or out side the university. According to him, the research worker must also Ije free to pursue his investigations and to disseminate widely his results. He then went on to say that any law or organizational structure which curtails the freedom to teach and pursue re search, undermines by the same token, the collective ability of the university to make a significant contribution to the solution of the social and economic problems facing society. He also submitted that it is by the careful and diligent nurturing of the fundamental freedoms of universities to teach and do research that the huge investment in higher education can be fully rewarded. He affirmed that scholars would be right to demand that those who pay the bills do not necessarily have to call the tune, sentiments which will find an appreciative echo in the mind of any contemporary Nigerian academic con fronted with interference in his academic life from a plethora of sources. Oluwasanmi, however, maintained that one of the conditions for this freedom is that the academic must regard his duties as sacred. He must also carry them out in a spirit of transparent honesty. It was his conviction that the freedom of the scholar imposed upon him the grave responsibility of seeking the best means of serving the needs of society through the excellence of teaching and research. The academic must be ready at all times to serve the society with diligence and total commitment. Professor Oluwasanmi was himself the perfect example in this respect as he gave unstintingly of himself to the service of the University of Ife and by extension the entire Nigerian university system. There is no doubt that theOluwasanmi years at Ife have been by far the best for the university and it is a tragedy of truly monumental proportions that the great man was forced out of office by an unreflective government in the wake of the now in famous collapsed hostel building incident. This was a cruel end to nine years of sterling service. The only consolation is that Professor Oluwasanmi left Ife with his dignity, not just intact, but enhanced. Till the very end, he stood up courageously to take responsibility for decisions taken by the university administration. This man, who was responsible for building all the grand structures on the Ife campus, left without owning a property to which he could take his family. He left Ife having given an account of all the monies spent by his administration during the nine years he was vice-chancellor. In so doing, he set a record for probity which is yet to be beaten by any of public administration in this country. The quality of service that Professor Oluwasamni gave at Ife is demonstrated by the fact that fully twenty-five years after his departure, his successors in office are called vice chancellors but THE VICE-CHANCELLOR remains Oluwasanmi. It is, therefore, inexplicable that apart from the university library which is named after Oluwasanmi, his remarkable achievements have not been given the recognition they so richly deserve. Surely, the outstanding contributions of this man to the development of the University at Ife and to the Nigerian university system as a whole, are worthy of recognition, not with the intention of immortalizing him, but in holding him up as a worthy example to all who find themselves in public office through out the length and breath of this country.
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