Bianca Iboma
Afolabi Ajayi, the registrar of Hallmark University, Itele, Ijebu Ode, Ogun State, is a bureaucrat who has impeccable dress sense and comportment that had always announced him anywhere as a man of high sartorial taste and remarkable character. He combines this with an infectious friendliness and charm that outwardly tend to level the hierarchical dividing line between him and his subordinates, without obviating discipline. Ask the members of staff and students in the university and Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, where he served as Deputy Registrar, or Ogun State College of Education, now Tai Solarin University of Education, where he began his career in higher education administration between 1983/84 and you would be told these are the defining personality traits that get the job done and keep the wheel of school administration running under Ajayi.
In this interview Ajayi speaks on life as a university administrator, as well as the worldview that shaped his life. Excerpts:
You are a graduate of Geography, why opt for a career in administration?
Initially, like any other young graduate, you would have a dream of what you want to be in life, but in most cases, things do not go as planned. I wanted to work in an industry. I wanted to do something that is practical, something that I can do with my own hands, but as fate would have it when I finished the compulsory national youth service at OSCE (Ogun State College of Education) I realized administration which I got into fortuitously was a career tailor-made for me, so to speak. Let me just tell you a short story. I did my NYSC there and when I got there, the registrar at that time, a very nice man, Mr Lawrence Adekoya, initially sent me to teach in the classroom and I was getting prepared for it. Then, he just called me and said there was one ad hoc committee that was set up and asked me to cover this meeting as secretary. At the end of it all, I wrote the minutes and gave to him. I was in my office when he just called me and said: “Young man, have you been writing minutes before?” I answered no, and told him this was the first one I would write. He then asked if anybody had gone through the minutes. I said “no sir”. He asked again: “You wrote this yourself?” And I said “yes, sir”. So, he told me that I would no longer go to the class again, that he was going to retain me in the administration to work for him. That was how I started my administrative career and worked there until I rose to the level of assistant registrar before crossing over to Ogun State University, which had taken off a short while before. As a young man, I did not have it in mind to be in the administrative line, that was why I did not join them since inception. But now that fate has decided that, I joined them at Ago-Iwoye as administrative officer one. Ever since then, through hard work and everything, I rose to become the deputy registrar in 2001. That was where I was until August 2018 when I took up an appointment here as registrar of this university.
How do you view the rivalry and conflicts that tend to define the relationship between some VCs and their Registrars?
If you ask me there is no basis for any rivalry between the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar because the statutes of the university had defined the roles of each of these two officers, so it is only when ego comes in between them that you have problem here and there. The Vice Chancellor is the overall boss. He is the Chief Executive Officer of the university, both academic and non-academic. He is the overall boss of everybody. To assist him are the principal officers-the registrar, the bursar, responsible for financial matters and the university librarian. So, the lines of duties are well-defined.
What’s been your experience here regarding the scourge of cultism and drug abuse, ravaging higher institutions including even faith-based private universities?
So far, so good, we have not experienced such horrible thing and by the grace of God and through discipline, values of hard work and morality we give our students, we are not likely to fall into such problem. When they come in, we conduct proper orientation for them, we tell them the do’s and don’ts of the university and impress on them the consequences for violating the rules and regulations. We start from mode of dressing. In Hallmark University, at all times, you must always be properly and decently dressed and this also goes for hair-do. We are not a faith-based university, but we try to mould our students’ character in line with principle of that popular saying: “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. We engage them in sports, recreational activities, because when students are properly engaged apart from their academics they tend to have a balanced lifestyle and so perform even better. Right from day one, we teach them how to be independent, how to look beyond academic pursuit, and so, we have an entrepreneurial centre, they even learn how to cook, how to make quite a lot of things. With all that we expect to have taken their minds off such horrible vices like cultism, drugs and the likes. Then, their hall of residence is well-monitored. Many of the public universities do not have hostels and so allow their students to live everywhere and anywhere and from there through peer groups these vices spread.
How did you cultivate this dignified personal image and sartorial sense for which you are so well known?
We give thanks to the Almighty Father! There is a powerful saying in Yoruba, “Riri ni’si, ni isi lojo, Ile la n wo, k’ato somo loruko”. Your appearance reflects who and what you are. People do not see your mind, they do not know what goes on in you, but what catches their attention are such things as your dressing, your comportment even to the extent of the shoes you wear.
The inward is reflected in the outward. I like to dress very well, not expensively, but neatly and decently. I am an adherent of The Grail Message, which is a source of knowledge permitted through the grace of the Almighty Father to be brought down to us on earth to guide humanity on the ideal way to live, in accordance with the will of God in order to be happy and fulfill the purpose of life. It offers authoritative enlightenment about the structure of creation, the creator, man, in fact, everything about life and existence. From this knowledge, I was able to rediscover myself and the first thing when you discover yourself is to do that which is right, which will be in tune with harmony, that is create a sense of beauty. Attempts at doing this will reflect in every aspect of your life; in your dressing, speaking, character, and in relationships with people. Of course, this does not mean that I do not have weaknesses that I am battling with, but through the grace of and out of His love that is the thing that has given what you recognize as, what did you call it – “dignified personal image”.
Could you be referring to God when you mentioned the Almighty Father, because the idea we have is that this Grail Message is a cult?
Oh, yes! It’s simply that adherents of the Message do not call Him by that three- letter word frivolously or all the time. The name of the Almighty, the Lord of Lords, is the holiest name that man dares utter. When that name is mentioned, right from His throne down to this place, helpers arise to assist and give succour to the person who invoked His name. But due to our frivolity and carelessness, we have debased that concept of the name of the Almighty Father, such that its misuse cannot evoke the same awe necessary to trigger off the waves of the helping powers needed. That is one of the things The Grail Message is here to correct. Through the debasement the prayer loses the magnetism that is attached to that name and once you misuse it, it does not work anymore. If you call it a million times, you are just wasting your time. But when you revere the name, respect and only make use of it at the greatest time of need, it works wonders.
I have done it many times and it has worked for me. I do not know why people think the Grail Message is a secret society. It is only something mysterious, hidden, that you do not see that is secret, but the books are out there and available for anyone willing to examine in the various outlets of the book trade. The adherents too conduct their activities freely and in the open, they talk to you freely, yet some still refer to them as a secret society. Grail Message has nothing whatever to do with secrecy. It is a knowledge which is open to every human being on earth to help himself.
So, how has this knowledge impacted your life?
Tremendously, you cannot quantify the kind of grace, love, mercy and opportunities I’d received from The Grail Message. I read the book way back in 1987. If you ask me, it is a book that I will recommend for every human spirit working on earth today to live a fulfilled, really happy life. The taste of the pudding is in the eating. The university is not a faith-based university. Majority of what I do in my line of work stem from the helpful insights and teachings of the Message. It includes my relationship with the staff working under me. It guides me on how to treat and appreciate my fellow human beings. It assists me in having deep appreciation of the grace of the Almighty Father around me, in terms of the environment, dealing with people and in every sphere of human endeavour.
It has assisted me tremendously and I give thanks to the Almighty for this. Of course, there is no way you can avoid conflicts in dealing with human beings, but through the knowledge of the natural laws, which the Message espoused, you are able to promote peace and harmony. For instance, having it at the back of your mind that what you sow is what you will reap will assist you in dealing with your fellow human being; be he your students, lecturers, everybody around you because you know deep down within you that whatever you do to them will as a matter of fact come back to you in multiple. Also, according to the Law of Spiritual Gravity, which dictates that what is heavy sinks, while that which is light rises, the more good you do to people the lighter and thus happier you become.
So, if you oppress any human being, you are not oppressing him but you are actually oppressing yourself in the long run, because those unworthy, cruel deeds that you perpetrated are coming back to weigh you down. The law of like attracts like ensures that if you are good, you will attract something good and vice versa. And that has really helped me to attract good people around me here in the university. These laws embody and express the will of our maker for all that takes place in creation. Through their activities they maintain order and further progress in creation, thereby manifesting the love and justice of the creator.