Prof. Badejo holds inaugural Senate meeting, charges LASU to become Africa’s most consequential City university 

The tenth substantive Vice-Chancellor of Lagos State University (LASU), Professor Ayodeji Olawunmi BADEJO, FCASSON, FAPROCON, MNAE, has charged the University’s Senate to move LASU from an institution admired for its size to one that Lagos State cannot do without.

Speaking at her inaugural Senate meeting on Thursday, 29th October 2026, at the Babatunde Raji Fashola, Senate Building, First Floor, Senate Chamber, Main Campus, Ojo, Lagos.

Professor BADEJO expressed gratitude to the Lagos State Government, the people of Lagos State and the Governing Council for the confidence reposed in her. She also paid tribute to all her predecessors, both substantive and acting Vice-Chancellors, acknowledging their contributions to the University’s stability, a disciplined academic calendar and a reputation that makes it a first-choice institution for families across Nigeria.

Describing the Senate as the place where the University thinks, the Vice-Chancellor presented herself not merely as an administrator but as a colleague who had spent most of her professional life at LASU. “LASU is not an institution one merely administers. It is an institution one inherits, one serves and one hands forward,” she said.

Professor BADEJO made a direct appeal to senior professors who had withdrawn from Senate meetings to return to the chamber, contribute to deliberations, challenge the administration and express disagreement whenever they believed it was necessary.

Quoting the Yoruba proverb, “Àgbà kì í wà lọ́jà kí orí ọmọ tuntun wọ́” (An elder must not stand by and allow a newborn’s head to become misshapen), she emphasised that a new generation of scholars was emerging in every faculty and required the guidance of experienced academics.

“A Senate without its elders is a Senate condemned to repeat its mistakes,” she declared, adding that she wanted younger scholars to sit alongside their senior colleagues so that fresh ideas and institutional memory could work together in advancing the University.

Reflecting on the founding of LASU by Alhaji Lateef JAKANDE in 1983, the Vice-Chancellor observed that the University had fulfilled its founding promise in terms of scale and reach. She disclosed that 84,326 candidates had selected LASU as their first-choice institution in the current admission cycle, making it the most preferred university in Nigeria for the second consecutive year. The University now serves more than 85,000 students across its campuses in Ojo, Ikeja, Epe and Badagry, with almost all its academic programmes enjoying accreditation.

She also highlighted several institutional achievements, including the opening of West Africa’s largest digital library, LASU’s selection to host the South-West’s only national centre of excellence in artificial intelligence, robotics and cyber sciences, and the University’s women’s football team representing Africa on the global stage.

According to her, these achievements come with greater responsibility. She challenged the Senate to move beyond measuring the University by the scale of its physical and institutional development and to focus instead on the purpose, impact and value of its accomplishments.

Professor *BADEJO* maintained that identifying the University’s weaknesses was an act of institutional courage rather than an accusation against any individual or group. She noted that although LASU was admired for its high number of applicants, accredited programmes and physical infrastructure, it had yet to earn comparable recognition for its outputs and measurable impact.

She observed that research income remained in the millions of naira when it ought to run into billions, student enrolment continued to outstrip the available classrooms and laboratories, and many members of staff remained uncertain about their verified entitlements.

The Vice-Chancellor further stressed that the University’s campuses must function as one cohesive institution and that its achievements must be sustained beyond the tenure of any particular administration.

Building on her campaign vision, Towards an Even Greater LASU, the Vice-Chancellor declared that the University must look beyond competing to become Nigeria’s best state university and instead aspire to become Africa’s most consequential city university. She outlined five guiding principles to drive this ambition.

The first is to make Lagos the University’s living laboratory. With its ports, markets, hospitals, courts, film sets, fintech companies, traffic challenges and recurring floods, Lagos offers a wealth of opportunities for research and practical solutions. She challenged every faculty to identify the specific problems of Lagos that its research and teaching could help address.

The second principle prioritises outputs over inputs. She stated that LASU’s performance should be measured by outcomes such as student completion rates, graduate employability and research capable of influencing public policy and improving society.

The third focuses on the holistic development of students. Drawing on her professional background in counselling, Professor BADEJO pledged to provide every student with an academic adviser, a single point of access to support services and supervised work experience before graduation. She also promised to establish a University Counselling and Wellbeing Centre and a Student Opportunity Fund.

The fourth principle, which she described as peace as productivity, commits the administration to providing every member of staff with a confidential statement of verified entitlements within its first 100 days in office.

The fifth principle requires that the structures, policies and achievements established during her single, non-renewable five-year tenure should endure beyond her administration. To achieve this, she pledged to introduce a published institutional strategy, transparent annual performance reports and a framework that would encourage her successor to improve upon the existing plan rather than discard it.

Professor BADEJO emphasised that she was not asking the Senate merely to approve a vision but to take ownership of it. She called on members to uphold academic excellence above academic politics, embrace evidence as the common language of the University, place students at the centre of policy decisions and ensure that research produces tangible benefits beyond the University community.

Within her first year in office, she pledged to present a comprehensive academic quality audit, an *Admissions Excellence and Standards Framework, a policy on the responsible use of artificial intelligence in teaching, assessment and research, and an annual Faculty Frontier Review.

In return, she assured Senate members that the administration would not take decisions on matters requiring Senate’s prior consideration without first bringing them before the chamber. She also promised that the evidence supporting every proposal would be made available and that dissenting views would be heard and respected.

In one of the most emphatic sections of her address, the Vice-Chancellor declared an end to divisions within the institution. She insisted that there was no separate LASU for Ojo, Ikeja, Epe or Badagry; no old or new LASU; and no management or Senate LASU. Rather, she said, there was only one University, united by one seal, one motto and one name on every certificate.

“Whatever side any of us stood on in the seasons behind us, there is only one side now, LASU’s,” she declared.

Quoting another Yoruba proverb, “Àjèjé ọwọ́ kan kò gbé ẹrù dórí” (One hand cannot lift a load onto the head), she urged members of the University community to abandon divisive language and stop referring to other parts of the institution as “they”.

In her closing remarks, Professor BADEJO acknowledged that the Senate had heard inaugural speeches in the past. She therefore invited members to judge her administration by tangible results, including the academic quality audit, the delivery of staff entitlement statements, the publication of annual performance reports and the return of absent senior professors to Senate deliberations.

“We can manage the University we inherited or we can build the University the next generation deserves,” she said.“I choose to build.”

The address concluded with a renewed commitment to the University’s development and shared responsibility for its future.