The Vice-Chancellor of Kwara state University, Malete, Professor Mustapha Mohammed-Akanbi, is dead.
Akanbi , a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, became the Vice Chancellor of the University at the age of 49.
He was appointed as Vice-Chancellor on April 1 2020. The senior advocate has died two months before his 52nd birthday.
Akanbi was the second person to serve as head of the institution since its establishment in 2009.
The pioneer Vice –Chancellor of the university, Professor Rasheed Na’allah, is currently the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja.
The deceased’s father, Late Justice Muhammad Mustapha Adebayo Akanbi, served as President of the Federal Court of Appeal and he was also the pioneer Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC. He died on June 3 2018.
Sources told Team@orientactualmags.com that the VC breathed his last at a hospital in Dubai but this could not be confirmed through other sources before publishing this report.
While a source claimed that he also died after a short illness another one said the Professor of law had been down with an ailment for more than one month now adding that the Deputy Vice-Chancellor had since then taken charge of the affairs of the university.
The university’s Registrar, Mrs Kikelomo Salle, had since confirmed in a statement issued in Ilorin that Akanbi died on Sunday after a prolonged illness.
‘We urge everyone to remember his immediate and extended family, and the University in prayers in this very trying time. Burial arrangements will be announced soon’ she submitted.
Sadly, this had come at a time the two public universities in Kwara state have professors of law and Senior Advocates of Nigeria as Vice Chancellors.
Professor Wahab Olasupo Egbewole, who became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 2018, was appointed as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin last month.
Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq had since offered his condolences, describing the news of Akanbi’s death as painful and shocking.
‘We submit to the decree of Allah who gives and takes. It is against that backdrop that we mourn the Vice- Chancellor who answered Allah’s call tonight. He was a true and humble servant of Allah and we beseech our God, the Oft-Forgiving and Merciful, to grant him al-jannah Firdaus.
The professor of law was a colossus who played the leading role to open a new chapter of academic excellence and greatness for KWASU. Our condolences go to his family, immediate and extended, to KWASU and the rest of the academic community, and to members of the bar and the bench in Kwara State and across the country’ he said-Team@orientactualmags.com
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