The Vice-Chancellor of Lagos State University (LASU), Prof. Ibiyemi Ibilola Olatunji-Bello, has bowed out after five years in office, citing a 96 per cent first-year accreditation success rate and an increase in the university’s internally generated revenue from N3 billion to N13 billion as some of the major achievements of her administration.
Olatunji-Bello delivered her final convocation address on Wednesday during the grand finale of LASU’s 29th and 30th Combined Convocation Ceremonies at the Buba Marwa Auditorium, Ojo.
The Vice-Chancellor described her tenure as one that transformed LASU into “the most subscribed university in Nigeria and the most digitally advanced among our peers.”
She said she assumed office in September 2021 and was leaving behind “a university of proven excellence” after inheriting “a university of strong potential.”
The ceremony featured the award of professional and academic doctorate degrees to 375 graduands, as well as the conferment of honorary doctorate degrees on three distinguished Nigerians.
Olatunji-Bello said academic excellence was her administration’s “first and most urgent priority,” noting that the university recorded significant improvements in programme accreditation.
In our very first exercise, we secured full accreditation for 31 of 37 programmes presented — a 96 per cent success rate that remains, to date, an unprecedented first-year achievement for any sitting Vice-Chancellor,” she said.
She added that in 2023, LASU secured full accreditation for 43 of the 44 programmes presented, while in 2026, 17 new programmes received full accreditation from the National Universities Commission through resource assessment.
All our professional programmes achieved full accreditation,” she said, adding that the university also established four new faculties and two schools, with more than 30 new courses considered to be in high demand.
In October 2025, the university inaugurated the Babajide Sanwo-Olu Library Complex, which was described as the largest and most digitalised university library building in West Africa.
The outgoing Vice-Chancellor said financial sustainability was also central to her administration’s agenda.
“Between September 2021 and September 2025, we grew our internally generated revenue from N3 billion to N13 billion — a fourfold increase,” she said.
Olatunji-Bello attributed the increase to creativity, leveraging internal capacity and the full automation of financial processes to block leakages that had previously affected the university’s resources.
She said the university executed more than 50 infrastructure projects funded through the Lagos State Government, Federal Government, TETFund, private donors and internally generated revenue.
The projects, she said, included the Students’ Arcade, 8,000-bed hostels and the N3 billion TETFund-sponsored Academic Resource Centre.