By Aremo Tunde Oladunjoye
Few days ago, specifically on March 9, 2025, the Federal Government announced its decision to take over Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ijagun, Ogun State.
Founded by the Ogun State Government in 2005, TASUED is acclaimed to be Nigeria’s first specialised university of education. It was named after Dr. Tai Solarin, a revered activist and founder of the popular Mayflower School in Ikenne, Ogun State.
As a federal institution, TASUED will be the first federal-owned tertiary school in Ogun East senatorial district of the state.
The presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, stated that Tinubu “has approved the adoption of the university and thanked the Ogun State Government for inviting the Federal Government to take over the school…”
The statement quoted the President as saying: “It is an opportunity for the Federal Government to honour Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who began the revolutionary free education program in Western Nigeria, and Dr. Tai Solarin, who spent most of his life educating our children and impacting patriotic and leadership lessons in them at Mayflower School in Ikenne.
“It is also in honour for the Awujale of Ijebuland, who played a critical role in preventing the university’s closure in 2012, just seven years after its establishment,” he added.
The news of the adoption of TASUED by the Federal Government was received with instantaneous applause, hugs, back slapping and so on, across and beyond Ogun State.
Messages of gratitude immediately poured out from Ogun state government, the TASUED management, Alumni, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) and other groups to President Tinubu for the very popular decision.
However, one name kept ringing; that of the Awujale and Paramount Ruler of Ijebuland; President Ijebu Traditional Council (ITC), Kabiyesi Alayeluwa Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona (GCON).
While President Tinubu acknowledged that the adoption was “also in honour of the Awujale of Ijebuland, who played a critical role in preventing the university’s closure in 2012, just seven years after its establishment”, the university management in a press statement signed by the Registrar and Secretary to the school’s Governing Council, Mr. Dapo Oke, said: “We congratulate his Royal Majesty, Oba (Dr.) Sikiru Adetona CFR, for this unique achievement in Ijebuland and Ogun State during his reign.”
The university also expressed gratitude to the Awujale and a few others for their “immense contributions to education and national development”.
The undeniable fact remains that, but for the Awujale of Ijebuland, the former governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun would have closed down the school in 2012 and there would have been nothing for the Tinubu Administration to adopt in 2025.
It would be recalled that In 2010 towards the end of his administration, the then Governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, wanted to change the name of TASUED to his own name via an executive bill, but the move could not succeed due to stiff opposition, especially from the media, stakeholders and members of the State House of Assembly, known as G15, who he was on a protracted loggerhead with.
The Daily Independent newspaper in its “Analysis” titled “Renaming Tai Solarin University” published on August 15, 2010 had this to say about the unpopular and self-serving move of Otunba Gbenga Daniel to name TASUED after himself: “Out of today’s Ogun state, there is always something bizarre. The knack for making the headlines for the wrong reasons is very pronounced in dysfunctional Ogun state. It is therefore with a sense of déjà vu that we note the latest faux pas.
“The decision of the Ogun State Executive Council to rename the Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ijagun, Ijebu Ode in Ogun State, after Governor Gbenga Daniel is a strategic error of judgment. Perhaps, to be charitable, the state executive council had an off day. For whatever reason, the decision should be immediately reversed. Ludicurously, the executive council has requested that the naming should take effect after the tenure of the governor. This does not in any way mask the damage already done. Such an act will tie the hands of a new administration whose priorities might lie elsewhere.”
By 2012, Daily Independent appeared prophetic as Governor Amosun’s priority was bent on erasing anything linked to his predecessor, Gbenga Daniel. Amosun who could barely hide his ethnocentric disdain for the Ijebu people, announced the scrapping of the first University of Education in Nigeria!
As soon as the move became known to Awujale, he quickly summoned the House of Assembly members from Ogun East, eleven of them, out of the 26 members in the state assembly and warned them that the closure of TASUED must not be allowed to happen.
Afterwards, the highly regarded monarch invited Amosun to a meeting. Awujale reportedly asked the governor three times during the meeting why he wanted to close the university and the governor responded on each occasion that it was “money”: “No funds to run the school. “
Awujale then told Senator Amosun that if money was the problem, he should not close the university but hand it over to the Ijebu people who will assuredly fund and run the institution.
Palace sources said the royal father started calling prominent, well-to-do sons and daughters of Ijebuland to immediately raise the much- needed funds to acquire the university from the Ogun State Government. Awujale, according to sources, was actually levying those he was calling on the planned take over of TASUED by the Ijebu people. A management committee to administer the university was also being put together by the monarch. Governor Amosun, knowing well the steadfastness of the Awujale, quickly beat a retreat and that was how TASUED survived the axe.
So, as President Tinubu acknowledged the efforts of Awujale that prevented the scrapping of the university in 2012 and called the adoption by his government as a honour to Awujale, it may also not be out of place to say that the take over of TASUED by the Federal Government is a befitting 91st birthday anniversary gift to the longest reigning first class monarch in Nigeria, who will clock 91 years on the 10th of May, 2025.
Aremo Tunde Oladunjoye is the First Onigegewura Akile Ijebu
