Nana’s Travelogues – Honouring an Exiting African Giant

We continued our Board meeting today till lunch time. After lunch, we had a joint ARUA-WUN closing session, essentially to wrap up and outline how our collaboration would look like. With the understanding that humanity’s challenges are best resolved collaboratively, we agreed to broadly collaborate on PhD training and early career development. Co-anchored by the Chairs of the WUN Partnership Board and the ARUA Board, Professor Sandra Almeida and Professor Sizwe Mabizela, President of the Federal University of Minas Gerias, Brazil and Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University respectively, with the backing of the Executive Secretary (ES) of WUN, Professor Peter Lennie and the Secretary General (SG) of ARUA, Professor Ernest Aryeetey, we concluded on an optimistic note of collaborative prospects for the two networks. We left the Future Africa Campus (FAC) back to the hotel around 2.30pm. At 3.30pm, in the ballroom of the hotel, we had a brief WUN AGM, bringing an official end to WUN 2024.

At. 5.40pm, we headed back to Future Africa Campus to celebrate five years of its establishment, and also to honour Prof. Ernest Aryeetey as he exits as Foundation SG of ARUA at the end of July. The set-up, even though not as exquisite as what we had at the forecourt of the Old Arts building on the University of Pretoria main campus the night before, was beautiful. The dining hall of the Future Africa Campus has been transformed into a celebratory dining space. One thing was for sure, many of us were glad it was an indoor event, and it was only the pre-dinner drinks that kept us outdoors for a while. We had no need of blankets!

The comperes of the event, Dr. Colleta Gandidzanwa and Mr. Jason Owen skillfully steered the affairs of the evening. The Interim Vice-Chancellor, Professor Themba Mosia’s speech reflected on the journey of the FAC so far, acknowledging those who conceived the idea and ensured it came into fruition. He appreciated the various directors and key actors who ensure that on a daily basisd FAC lives up to expectation. He did not forget to recognize that we were there to celebrate the pioneering role of Professor Ernest Aryeetey in the establishment of ARUA. This was the longest I have heard him speak this week, and I have heard him speak four times. His speech, which was laced with a sufficient dose of humour, kept me engrossed as it gave me insights to the history of the FAC.

Then it was the turn of Chairman Professor Mabizela to pay tribute to Professor Aryeetey, and it was a glowing one. He described Professor Aryeetey as a “continental patriot” and a “global citizen”, who has steered the affairs of ARUA with distinction, setting a solid foundation for us to build on for decades to come. A fundraiser par excellence, he has led fundraising efforts which provided the funds for the setting up of Centres of Excellence across member institutions. Indeed, at the point of his retirement, ARUA is on the verge of securing a $700m funding from Mastercard Foundation for the training of 10,000 PhDs on the African continent for the next ten years. The co-creation of the twenty Clusters of Research Excellence by ARUA member universities and the GUILD of Europe is as a result of his visionary leadership and unrelentless efforts.

Professor Aryeetey’s response was informative. At a personal level, I gained more insights into the beginnings of ARUA. I was excited to note that Professor Cheryl de la Rey , who I met in London last week, in her capacity as Chair of the Council of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), played a key role in the establishment of ARUA when she was, at the time, Vice-Chancellor of University of Pretoria. He noted the pioneering roles of Professor Adam Habib and Professor Max Price, and the long standing administrative/accounting support from the University of Witwatersrand.

Professor Aryeetey retires at the end of July, after eight years of distinguished service to the continent of Africa and the world, through his stellar leadership of ARUA. He will be fondly missed. Since his days as Vice- Chancellor of the University of Ghana, I have always thought that his ideas are as gigantic as his stature. He dreams big and pushes for them to come through. He recognizes difficulties but refuses to be unfazed by them. If there ever is a perpetual optimist, that would be him. He chooses to focus on opportunities rather than difficulties.

Professor Aryeetey walked when the applause was loudest, and the African research community will cherish him for the solid foundation he has laid to enable us to work collaboratively as African universities to considerably scale up our research output, in our attempt to provide solutions for our continent’s challenges as well as that of the world.

I am glad to welcome him back to the University of Ghana as Emeritus Professor to continue with his capacity building efforts. With this in mind, I do not have the moral fortitude to wish him a happy retirement.

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