Given the ever growing global momentum in science and engineering, a number of nations, organizations, and institutes are ever conscious to be consistent with the terrain while some find it difficult to keep up with the pace. Remarkably, Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD) ranks among institutions able to keep the pace. ABUAD has again set the pace in Mechatronics Engineering in Nigeria.

Delivering a seminar organized by ABUAD in collaboration with National Universities Commission and a leading automation engineering company in the world, FESTO Automation, Germany, on Tuesday, May 10, 2011, at Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, (ABUAD), the Guest Speaker, Engineer Ambrose Ayodele of FESTO Automation, who spoke on Innovations in Science and Engineering in the 21^{st Century}, said that, ABUAD had set a pace being the only university in Nigeria that offers Mechatronics Engineering. He said, for ABUAD to have added such industrial based engineering course into its Engineering programmes meant that ABUAD was innovative and really ready to producing graduates who would ensure a practical industry with a clear emphasis on productivity. The Guest Speaker stressed that, Mechatronics is a new thought pattern; that ABUAD was the only institution where he had found a PhD holder in Mechatronics . . . the highest so far.

While delivering the seminar, the Guest Speaker spoke on the benefits ABUAD would gain with the partnership with FESTO Automation. He declared that ABUAD’s affiliation with FESTO would institute a FACT Centre in ABUAD which would engage in Authorized and Certified Training. He disclosed that a FACT Centre in ABUAD which would be the same as anyone in America and other places would associate ABUAD with the Festo brand –recognized globally as standing for engineering excellence, innovation, and leadership in industrial training.

In a welcome address by ABUAD’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Sidi Osho, she said that the seminar marked another milestone in the history of Afe Babalola University as ABUAD’s philosophy was to reform education and for ABUAD to lead by example. Prof. Sidi Osho who spoke on the history of the FACT Centre said that the National Universities Commission and FESTO officials paid an unscheduled visit to ABUAD on April 18, 2011, and it was discovered by the team that Afe Babalola University had the facilities and infrastructure for a FACT Centre. According to the VC, the College of Engineering was found to be the most organized in the country; that ABUAD was the only institution that was found to run Mechatronics Engineering with other Engineering programmes which included; Chemical, Civil, Computer, Petroleum, Mechanical and Electrical/Electronic Engineering courses.

The VC noted that with the application of Mechatronics, manufacturing process was automated and this, according to her, would give Nigerian companies competitive edge over companies with no such knowledge. She further declared that, ABUAD’s partnership with FESTO would allow ABUAD students to participate in a robotic competition in Turkey by July, 2011, and also in a World Skills Programme in the United Kingdom by October, 2011.

In his remarks, the Founder and President Emeritus, ABUAD, Aare Afe Babalola (SAN), restated that, Afe Babalola University was conceived and born to be a pace-setter and a reformer; that it has been showing the way to qualitative and transformative education which Nigeria needed. According to him, ABUAD is the first university where Mechatronics Engineering is taught in Nigeria and indeed in West Africa. In furtherance to this, Aare declared that the ABUAD community was indeed thrilled and impressed by the acknowledgement of ABUAD by the National Universities Commission and FESTO Automation, Germany, the proper institution to partner with in the new area of Mechatronics.

The establishment of a FACT Centre in ABUAD by FESTO Automation (Mechatronics), for the training of students and engineers, as disclosed by Aare, would further enhance the status of ABUAD as a leading 21st Century University.