President of Dangote Group and Africa’s richest man and Nigerian billionaire, Aliko Dangote is set to redeem his N250million donation to the Nigeria’s premier university, University of Ibadan (UI) as delegates from Dangote Foundation have visited the University to work out modalities regarding the release of the money.
It will be recalled that Dangote announced the donation of N250m towards the building of UI School of Business in November 2016 while being awarded with an honourary Doctorate degree along with two other prominent Nigerians, Prof. Niyi Osundare and Chief Bode Amoo.
Receiving the delegates from Dangote Foundation in his office, UI Vice Chancellor, Prof. Abel Idowu Olayinka expressed delight at the development, describing Dangote as a man of integrity and honour, saying, “it is easy for anyone to make a promise, but it takes a man of integrity and honour to fulfill the promise”
“This University will forever be grateful to the President of Dangot Group for he has added substantial value to UI in general and UISB in particular for we know that this gesture will go a long way to uplift the School of Business,” Prof. Olayinka, adding that “Dangote is a prominent brand, so also is UI. We will like to have an enduring partnership with him because he is a role model.”
To avoid bureaucratic bottleneck in spending the money, the VC suggested that the project that the money is meant for, should be directly executed by the Foundation, pointing out that “the best way to ensure transparency is for the Foundation to pay the contractors directly.”
Prof. Olayinka later directed UI team including the representatives from the UISB, Works and Maintenance department to liaise with the delegates from the Dangote Foundation so as to execute a project that the promised amount can adequately accommodate.
However, both teams later moved to site where ideas were traded towards putting up a structure that can justify the amount that will ultimately culminate into each party feeling fulfilled.
Among the Dangote Foundation delegates are Programme Operations Manager, Mr. Musa Bala, Architect Abdullahi Sarari, and Engr. Auwahi Halliru.
The UI Director of Works, Engineer O.A. Adetolu and Deputy Director, UISB, Dr. V.O. Oladokun were also in attendance.