Valedictory Lecture Held in Honour of Prof. Margaret Okorodudu-Fubara
Following the retirement from service of Obafemi Awolowo University’s Dean of the Faculty of Law, Professor Margaret Okorodudu-Fubara, a valedictory lecture was held in her honour on Tuesday, April 6, 2020.
Professor Margaret T. Okorodudu-Fubara is a 1972 law graduate of the University of Lagos with a distinguished record in environmental law consulting and university teaching. She was called to the Bar in 1973.
She obtained the LL.M and SJD Degrees in 1977 and 1980, respectively, from Harvard Law School, USA, after a first LL.M Degree from the University of London, UK in 1975. She is the 1st Woman Professor of Law in Nigeria’s first generation/Federal University; the 1st Professor of Environmental Law in the ECOWAS sub-region and 2nd Professor of Environmental Law in sub-Saharan Africa.
Professor Okorodudu-Fubara, a former Dean of the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (1995-2000), is widely published in reputable national and international journals and is the author of the 1st Nigerian textbook on environmental law, widely circulated nationally and abroad. Professor Okorodudu-Fubara was granted the Senior Fulbright Scholar Award 1990/91 and the Robert S. McNamara (World Bank) Fellow 1990/91 (the first time in history a scholar would be recipient of both highly coveted scholarly grants in the same year according to an official of the USIS) to undertake overseas Sabbatical as Visiting Scholar at the St. Mary’s University School of Law, San Antonio, Texas, USA, 1990/91 (primary host institution); and invited Visiting
Scholar, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 1990/91 (secondary host institution).
She was appointed Visiting Professor at the School of Law, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA, 2001/02 where she taught Comparative Environmental Law. She was appointed Consultant for the United Nations Environment Programme, Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya, 2002/03 engaged as part of the team to prepare a Draft Manual on the UNEP Guidelines on Compliance with and Enforcement of Multilateral Agreements.
Professor Okorodudu-Fubara is a member of the IUCN an Associate Member of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law. She was appointed by the President, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Member of the National Universities Commission (NUC) 2009-2011. In 2012 she was appointed Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Professor of Taxation
(Professorial Chair).
The valedictory lecture, which was titled: ” EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY …Pedagogies and Odyssey of My Ivory Tower Years at IFELAW.” An excerpt from her valedictory speech reads:
Transition to a Pedagogue in the University …
I resumed life as an academic at the University of Ife on the 2nd of December, 1982 (just six months short of my 10th year post-call anniversary, thus effectively ‘escaping’ the widely presumed appointment to the Higher Bench in the Bendel State Judiciary), and so transiting from the courtroom to the
classroom. For someone who had never been a teacher at the primary or secondary school level, now finding myself as a pedagogue in the university, I
simply deployed my most recent teaching and learning experience garnered from Harvard Law…the Socratic paradigm, often times combined with my earlier
experiences from UCL and of course Professor T.O. Elias’ very interesting and captivating teaching style that almost literally glues the student to the iconic teacher’s lucid and captivating pedagogy. Frankly, this is not to say that I was quite close to my legendary mentor’s powerful knowledge impartation method.
The Harvard pedagogy offered a functional teaching method for me, especially at the postgraduate level. My first set of post-graduate students, you may like to call them my pedagogic ‘guinea pigs’, actually they were ‘eggheads’, the best of the best, highly cerebral, some of them sitting across from me as I deliver this lecture today… Professor Ademola Popoola; Professor Mike Ikhariale; Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN; Dr. Damola Aderemi and Professor Wale Ajai.
The good news and the joy of my pride over these excellent gentlemen (all of them my ‘aburos’) as a matter of fact and to the glory of God Almighty; today I am yielding the Doyen seat of the Faculty of Law to one of these remarkable men, from my first set of PG students, the learned and erudite Professor Ademola Popoola, as I take my leave from the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University. I leave with full assurance that with him in that saddle, the faculty is in very good and capable hands of the finest crop of my younger colleagues in the ranks of Professors, Readers, Senior Lecturers, Lecturers I and II, and the Junior Trainee Fellows (JTF) who have concertedly revitalized the Faculty of Law under the current Deanship of Professor Femi Odunsi and Vice Dean Dr. Korede Yusuff (Reader).
Since joining the services of the University in December 1982, I have been involved in the teaching of the following courses:
•Law of Business Associations
•Law of Taxation
•Commercial Law
•Criminal Law
•Environmental Law
•Law of Corporate Management and Finance
•Revenue Law
•International Environmental Law
My administrative services within the university system have included:
•Acting Head, Department of Business Law, 1987/88
•Acting Head Department of Jurisprudence and Private Law, 1988/89
•Acting Head Department of Business Law
•Acting Dean, Faculty of Law 1995/96 to 1997/98
•Dean, Faculty of Law 1998/99 to 1999/2000
As Dean of Law, by virtue of Statute 13: 3(v) (i)-(k), I was mandated to act as Chairman at meetings of the Faculty; Chairman at all meetings of the Faculty
Board when I am present, and member of all Committees and other Boards appointed by the Faculty. I exercised “general superintendence over the academic
and administrative affairs of the Faculty.” I was also responsible for the presentation of “candidates for the award of Degrees (except Honorary Degrees)
and other academic titles and distinctions in the subjects for which the Faculty is responsible.”
The period of my Deanship marked a significant turning point in the history of the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University. As first female Dean of Law interestingly in the Year 2000, the Faculty/University recorded the emergence for the first time of an LL.B First Class Honours Degree awarded to a remarkabe lady, Miss Olufunsho Aweda who, breaking the glass ceiling obviously changed the narrative for the records in the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University since the establishment of this University. She subsequently applied to Harvard Law School for the LL.M Programme which I supported with a reference and she was admitted and successfully completed the programme.
Get the full valedictory speech here.
A book titled “A Compendium of the Life and Times of Professor Margaret Okorodudu-Fubara” was also launched at the valedictory lecture.
