How We Established LASU–Basorun Olorunfunmi
A former secretary to the Lagos State Government and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Pa Olorunfunmi Basorun, has explained how the Lagos State University was established.
Speaking in an interview with Newsnow at his Igbogbo, Ikorudu country home on Monday, the octogenarian politician said he was appointed the commissioner for education after the first term of Alhaji Lateef Jakande’s administration where he served as the SSG with the mandate to establish LASU.
He said; ” during the second term, Alhaji Jakande moved me to the ministry of education. He told me to ensure that LASU was established. He made me the chairman of the governing council. We appointed Prof Olumide of blessed memory as the pioneer vice Chancellor of LASU. He (Prof Olumide) died during COVID-19 pandemic.
“The place where LASU is situated today in Ojo has already been acquired by the Methodist Boys High School. They wanted to move from Broad Street to Ojo, but Alhaji Jakande gave them another land.
“We had already done that before the military coup came on December 31st 1983.”
Narrating his experience at the central bank of Nigeria where he worked for 21 years before he retired in 1979 to join Alhaji Jakande’s administration with nostalgic feeling, Basorun said it was about integrity.
” I was 21 years old when I joined the CBN in 1959 and I was there for 21 years, rising to the position of the deputy director of the apex Bank.”
Continuing, he said; ” in those good old days, unlike what we witnessed under the former CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, one thing that distinguished the workers at the apex bank is integrity,” he said.
Basorun said though he was arrested with Alhaji Jakande in 1983 after the coup for investigation by the then National Security Organisation, NSO, now Department of State Services, DSS, he was left off the hook when they came to his Igbogbo house without finding anything incriminating.
