The National President, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education (AOCOED) Alumni Association, Comrade Adeyemi Adesanya, has urged former students of the college in other tertiary institutions to come together under an association to assist one another and their alma mater.
He said the initiative, which is already in place at Unilag as ‘Ex-AOCOEDIANS in UNILAG,’ would foster new orientation and awareness among members when replicated nationwide.
Adesanya spoke while receiving the facilitator and protem general secretary of the group, Messrs Falolu Olamide and Fafunwa Olukunle Temitope who paid him a courtesy visit at the college where Adesanya also teaches last Friday.
Fafunwa said the visit was to seek collaborations with the alumni for a better relationship.
He said: “It is obvious that an average AOCOEDIAN is an all-rounder of some sort in outstanding performances. To this end, we want to align with your esteemed office and use it as a platform to present AOCOEDIANS and serve as an interface between AOCOED and UNILAG. This is because we feel that we should give back to the school that has produced us in terms of information dissemination and awareness.”
Fafunwa said the barely five month-old association intends to take care of the academic and social needs of past students of AOCOED who are at present UNILAG undergraduates.
“We feel as past students of AOCOED, we should not get to UNILAG and behave like strangers. We want to come together and cater for our own academic and social development of our members. Our vision and mission is to imbibe the values of honesty, competence, integrity and character in our stay in UNILAG and beyond, based on what AOCOED has imparted in us, and be worthy ambassadors of our alma mater,” Fafunwa added.
Though not yet registered with UNILAG authority, Olamide said plans are underway to achieve that, adding that once accomplished, the body would promptly set up executives to oversee its affairs
According to him, 64 students participated in the National Teaching Competition organised by Nigeria Universities Education Students Association (NUESA-UNILAG), out of which three products of AOCOED made up the eight finalists that eventually emerged.
However, Adesanya who congratulated them, lamented that the nearly 60-year old college has not enjoyed a deserving goodwill, despite that its producing distinguished personalities in varying fields.
He hopes his administration will complete and inaugurate the ongoing alumni secretariat which he estimated at nearly N8 million at the college premises, by Decemeber.
“We met almost nothing in the alumni purse on assumption of office (in November 2012),” said Adesanya. “So I took a decision that no kobo must come out from the association account on frivolities. So every kobo made went into the building project.
“During the groundbreaking of the secretariat in April 2014, many alumni members, politicians and traditional rulers came some of who made promise; yet never redeemed them till date,” he added.