Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) is a federal government-owned university that is located in the ancient city of Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1961 and classes commenced in October 1962 as the University of Ife by the regional government of Western Nigeria, which was led by Samuel Ladoke Akintola. It was renamed "Obafemi Awolowo University" on 12 May 1987 in honour of Obafemi Awolowo (1909–1987), the first premier of the Western Region of Nigeria, whose idea the university was. History In 1951, with the adoption of a new constitution, major changes were made to elected legislators and regional Premiers in the regions. The new regional governments prioritised expansion of primary and secondary education because they viewed education as an important agent of transformation and development. In 1959, the Federal Minister of Education created a commission to research the country's future manpower needs of university graduates between 1960 and 1980. The commission was headed by Cambridge lecturer Eric Ashby, master at Clare College, Cambridge, and also included labour economist Frederick H. Harbison. The expectation of the commission's final report by the Western Region government was that University of Ibadan would satisfy the needs of the Western region, a position on which the federal government disagreed. Before a final report was submitted in October 1960, the Western government began preparations for the establishment of a university in the region. The decision to establish the University of Ife) by the ruling Action Group party of the Western Region of Nigeria was in protest at the recommendations of the Ashby Report. The first Nigerian university was established in 1948 at Ibadan in the Western Region as an external college of the University of London. The needs of Nigeria (then a British colony), however, exceeded the productivity of the country's only university. In particular, the university of ibadan had no faculty of engineering or technology, law school, pharmacy school or management training abilities. The Ashby commission, which was set up by the British, was to review tertiary education needs of the soon-to-be-independent nation of Nigeria. The government of the Western Region did not want to rely on federal universities or those of other regions to admit its numerous secondary school leavers. The University at Ife was founded as a rebuttal to the perceived politicization of higher education opportunities in Nigeria and the Western Region and was designed to fill the gaps in