Ado-Ekiti, Dec 9, 2025
The Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, has commended the founder and Chancellor of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, ABUAD, Aare Afe Babalola, (SAN,)or spearheading quality healthcare delivery and Medical Education in the country.
The ABUAD Director of Corporate Affairs, Mr Tunde Olofintila made this known in a statement issued in Ado-Ekiti on Tuesday, and made available to newsmen.
According to him, this came when the 1st Vice President of the association , Dr. Benjamin Olowojebutu, led a nine-man delegation to pay Babalola, a courtesy call in his 15-year-old university in Ado-Ekiti yesterday.
Olowojebutu was full of praise for Babalola over what he (Olowojebutu), described as the latter’s massive investment in his university, and the 400-bed ABUAD Multi-System Hospital, which has been acknowledged by leading healthcare stakeholders as the “most well-equipped hospital in Sub-Saharan Africa”.
He also commented him for establishing the Industrial Park and the Independent Power Plant, IPP, as well as the ABUAD Enterprise Farms.
“I have gone round the university, the Hospital, the Industrial Park, the Independent Power Plant and the Farm, and was almost in tears when I saw the magnitude of what a single man who has never worked in government has put in place here
“What Aare Afe Babalola has done is out of his love for his people and the advancement of their cours, because he could have taken all of these to Abuja, Lagos or Ibadan.
But he chose Ekiti, thereby putting Ekiti in the limelight, particularly, as the university is not for profit but for humanity.
“I am overwhelmed with joy with what I have seen here today: a very clean and functional Hospital, a Radiology Department with two functional MRI machines and a Dialysis Centre with affordable charges.
” Indeed, there are many things going on in your hospital at the same time. I am marveled by the fact that you do not only produce your own Oxygen gas, but you also even supply to others”, he said.
Continuing, he said, “What you have done here is amazing. As a professional body, I dare say that it is worth emulating and celebrating.
“We celebrate you, particularly as you have put Ekiti in limelight. We thank and appreciate you. We pray for more longevity for you. We will continue to promote what you are doing here. We will speak with all the stakeholders in the health sector of the need to support and encourage you more.
“I am from Ekiti. I am proud of what I have seen here today, and I acknowledge that what you are doing here is worth celebrating”.
Earlier in her welcome remarks, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Smaranda Olarinde, described Babalola as a man who has changed the eco-system of country’s healthcare delivery and Medical Education for the better.
For this and other sundry contributions to different facets of Nigeria’s development, Olarinde affirmed that the Nonagenarian Lawyer, Philanthropist and Educationist, deserves outright support and encouragement.
According to her, support and encouragement have become the more imperative, to reduce the current overload of Doctor/Patient ratio which has brought unbearable burden on both the Doctors and their patients.
Taking a cue from Olarinde, the University’s Deputy Vice Chancellor (Administration), Prof. Olasupo Ijabadeniyi, who described Babalola as the best investor in Medical Education, stressed that for investing his hard-earned resources from Legal Practice into Medicare and Medical Education, Babalola deserves to be supported, encouraged and not subverted.
Said he: “Here is a man who built an ultra-modern 400-bed Hospital which has been endorsed as the “most well-equipped hospital in Sub-Saharan Africa”. He could have used his money junketing all over the world, but he did not do that.
” Rather, he deliberately elected to better the lot of his people”.
He added: “Nigerians should stop politicizing issues. If somebody is good and he is doing well, let us acknowledge it. That way, we will be encouraging others to do the same thing. Aare Afe Babalola has done so much for this country in all areas of human endeavour. All we need to do is to appreciate and encourage him”.
In his own remarks, Babalola thanked Olowojebutu and his team members for visiting him.
He recalled how the country was good and safe during the colonial era and immediately after independence, when life was safe at home, on the road, in the classroom, at the Airport and in the Train.
The man whose formal/classroom education stopped at Standard VI because of paucity of funds, disclosed that it was the education he acquired, through private studies that had made all the difference in his life.
He was grateful to God for enabling him to achieve the objective of establishing his non-for-profit private university: to institutionalize quality and functional education, and teach Nigerians how a university, properly so-called, should be run.
According to him, the achievement of his objective manifested at about midnight on June 18, 2025, in faraway Turkey, when the Times Education Impact Rankings ranked ABUAD among the Best 100 Universities in the world and No. 1 in Nigeria for four consecutive years: 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
He called on well-to-do Nigerians to emulate what he had been doing through ABUAD and ABUAD Multi-System Hospital, in the overall interest of the country.
His words: “There are many wealthy Nigerians out there who can do better than what I am doing here, but they have chosen not to.
” They have not looked in the direction of Education, forgetting that they can do a lot having regard to the fact that many of the leading universities in the world were founded by non-graduates”.
He enjoined Nigerians to work together towards making the country a better place for all to live and thrive in. In addition, he implored Nigerians to be their brothers’ keepers as, in his words, “Nigerians are going through a lot, and so, there is the need for all to imbibe the spirit of giving”.
He added: “I can tell you that there are many Nigerians who do not know what they will eat today. That makes it imperative for all of us to learn how to give.
“We never can tell how far a genuine smile we give to someone can go in his life. We can never foretell the comfort the school fees we pay for our neighbour’s son will bring to that boy or his family, neither can we know what N10,000 could mean to a hungry soul.
” That little seed we sow into the life of our neighbour could make all the difference in his/her life that day or even forever. This way, the society will be better”.
