The first Nigerian Professor of Literature and Medicine, bringing integrity, a wealth of experience, hard work, transparency and honesty to the office of Vice-Chancellor

Professor Emmanuel Babatunde Omobowale, a native of Erin Oke in Osun State, was born in Ibadan, where he attended Omolewa Nursery and Primary School, Oritamefa. Between 1979 and 1984 he was at various times a student at Government College, Ibadan, and Loyola College, Ibadan. After finishing Lower Six at Government College in June 1985, he gained admission to the University of Ibadan, where he graduated in English in 1989. He won the Departmental Prize and the first Heinemann Prize for Literature as the best graduating student of his set.

Professor Omobowale, 57, holds the degrees of B.A. in English with Second Class Honours (Upper Division), M.A. in Literature in English and Ph.D. in Literature in English from the University of Ibadan, and M.A. in Bioethics from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. Between 1991 and 1995 he was employed as an Assistant Editor and later Editor at Heinemann Educational Books Nigeria Limited. He joined the University of Ibadan as Assistant Lecturer in May 1995 and, through hard work, seminal publications and mentorship of his students, rose rapidly through the ranks to the grade of Professor, effective 1st October 2010. He is the first Nigerian Professor of Literature and Medicine.

He has published over 50 sole-authored articles in books and reputable journals, as well as a number of articles with his students and professional colleagues. He has successfully supervised 21 doctoral theses, 60 master’s dissertations and over 130 bachelor’s projects. He is the author of five works of art: The Eagle Must Fly and Others Stories (1992), The Melting Pot (1993), Seasons of Rage (1997, reprinted in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018), An Eye for An Eye (2000) and The President’s Physician (2004). In recent times he has focused more on writing short stories on issues revolving round the ethics of medicine, and for more than 10 years he has been one of the authors of Exam Focus: Literature, the leading preparatory textbook for literature candidates of WAEC, NECO and JAMB in Nigeria and West Africa.

Twice, in 1999 and 2010, he received the University of Ibadan’s Senate Research Grant. He was awarded the Fogarty Fellowship, which facilitated his training as a Bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University, and between 2006 and 2008 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mclaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, affiliated to the University of Toronto, Canada. He is happily married and has children.

Professor Omobowale brings to the new position his integrity, wealth of experience, hard work, transparency and honesty that have made him such a successful Scholar-Administrator throughout his career. We wish him a successful tenure as the Vice-Chancellor at West Midlands Open University Ikeja.