of Nigeria.
In his words,” when you see things being done consistently in the right way, there
is always a man pointing in that direction. A lot of people ask me how come you are doing
so much in public service; I say I come from a background where my mentor told me that
you don’t report efforts, you don’t give excuses, but you report results. So no matter the
situation, even in the midst of an economic recession, in the midst of Covid, you should not
stop development and performance. As far as you are from the Zenith family, you are
expected to have that creativity and ideas that can make you produce results. In Zenith, we
say only the paranoid survive. So I really want to appreciate what I am seeing here today”.
Whilst thanking the alumni association and the school authority for their collaborative efforts
towards achieving capacity development, which he described as the bane of Nigerian
society, he expressed his delight and honour to commission a building named after the
revered Late Prof. Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe, who touched and impacted so many people while
he was alive.
In his address, the National President of Unilag Alumni Association, Dr. John Momoh,
thanked the Founder and Chairman of Zenith Bank as well as the management of the bank
for the magnificent building and Mrs. Sola Ibidapo-Obe for accepting the association’s
request to name the building after her husband as a lasting legacy in his honour. He
encouraged everyone to take good care of and maintain the building to serve the university
community for years to come.
In her remarks, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola,
acknowledged the invaluable contributions of Zenith Bank to the development of the school,
promising to work with the Alumni association to ensure that the facility serves not only the
Alumni but also the entire students populace. She thanked the Founder and Chairman of
Zenith Bank, Jim Ovia, CFR, for donating 3,500 tablets to the university, which ensured that
students who could not afford laptops for e-learning during the covid-19 pandemic were not
left behind.
In her remarks, the wife of the Late Prof. Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe, Mrs. Sola Ibidapo-Obe,
thanked the Founder and Chairman of Zenith Bank, Jim Ovia, CFR, for immortalising her
late husband with such a great edifice named after him. Recalling how close he was to her
late husband, Mrs Ibidapo-Obe said: “You are my husband’s friend. Dr. Jim Ovia has
demonstrated the love that does not die in his friendship with my beloved husband. When
he fell ill, Dr. Jim Ovia was there from day one till the last moment. I could feel the way he
felt. From then, I knew that he was a genuine friend. He tried his best to ensure my husband
survived, but he did not”.
The iconic building, which sits on a total site area of 950m was constructed by a team of
world-class builders who had the mandate of delivering the best quality possible. The iconic
structure is a smart building that incorporates many of the elements that make a facility
environmentally friendly and sustainable, including a grid-tie solar system that sustains
power load on solar and not on a generator or national grid, an inverter-driven VRF air
conditioning system and motion sensor lighting to enhance energy efficiency, perforated
aluminium composite panels for natural lighting and ventilation, free Wi-Fi system to provide
