UI Holds 501st Inaugural Lecture

Olukoga Opemipo

The University of Ibadan’s 501st Inaugural lecture which was themed: Forest Governance in Nigeria: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly was delivered on Thursday, September 16 by Prof Busuyi Olasina Agbeja in Trenchard Hall.

Prof Agbeja, a professor of forest policy, law, and administration in the Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources and the current president of Commonwealth Forest Organisation, lectured the attendees on forest governance, the forestry development phases in Nigerian.
He stressed the importance of creation of forest reserves to ensure and regulate roles of forestry and how bad governance has reflected in some forest reserves which have been turned to illegal cocoa and food crop plantations.

While citing the inability of military and civilian governors in South-western Nigeria to manage forest reserves effectively and efficiently, he relayed how negative changes are attributable to discretionary power of government to de-serve and harvest the forest with lack of National Forestry Act, prevalence of illegal logging, ill-equipped forestry institutions to foster sustainability amongst others.

He also stated his contributions to the academic excellence and development of the Department of Forest Resources Management and a newly inaugurated Department of Social and Environmental Forestry of which to his credit, he had more than twenty grants, scholarships and fellowships.

The inaugural lecture was graced by the academic procession comprising the acting vice-chancellor, deputy-vice chancellor, registrar, librarian, provosts of the College of Medicine and the Postgraduate College, Dean of Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources, Directors of Institutes, students, and others like Professor Amdalat Bolanle Olaniyan, wife of Oyo state deputy governor.