Posted to the Web: Sunday, October 15, 2006
The appointment of Professor Tunde Babawale in August as the new director of the Centre for Black African Art and Civilization was taken with some sense of lukewarmness as to the capacity of a social scientist transforming a culture parastatal. This report reflects on the reform changes that the University of Lagos professor of political science has outlined to make CBAAC a culture brand name.
WHEN Professor Tunde Babawale of the Department of Political Science of the University of Lagos was in August, this year, appointed the new helmsman of the Centre for Black African Art and Civilization (CBAAC), not a few eyebrows were raised as to the pedigree of this scholar but no doubt, a political theorist and pragmatic scientist.
This feeling was probably informed by the fact that stakeholders in the culture sector have always clamoured for one of their own, in the very deep sense of the word, of one who is fully rooted in the turf of culture and its sub sectors as one to pilot the affairs of the culture sector.
But contrary to that expectation, when the new Culture and Tourism Ministry, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, carried out a reform change in the parastatals through the re-shufflement of some former directors. CBAAC which until then enjoyed the maximum leadership of Dr.
Duro Oni of the University of Lagos, Creative Arts Department was to have a new manager: a new figure head, a person of diminutive stature but frankly, one that possesses abundant creative facilities capable of transforming the unit.
Why do we say so, you may ask? There are many reasons that give birth to such conclusions.
The man, Tunde Babawale for instance, talks confidently and behaves like a man who understands the dynamics of the parastatal, which he is appointed to head. Though coming from the background of social science, he appreciates the fact that he is to pioneer the affairs of a culture parastatal and feels prepared to bring his multi-disciplinary knowledge to bear on her activities. And it is important he embarks on such approach and methodology given the fact that as the world is continually embracing globalization, efforts are geared by every country of the world toward harnessing every form and aspect of knowledge towards the advancement of mankind.
News RSS