University of Lagos

The University of Lagos (UNILAG) is a public research university located in Lagos, Nigeria, which was founded in 1962. UNILAG is one of the first generation universities in Nigeria and is ranked among the top universities in Africa in major education publications. The university presently has three campuses in the mainland of Lagos. Whereas two of its campuses are located at Yaba (the main campus in Akoka and the recently created campus at the former school of radiography), its college of medicine is located at Idi-Araba, Surulere. Its main campus is largely surrounded by the Lagos Lagoon and has 802 acres of land. As of 2024, the University of Lagos admits around 8,500 undergraduate students annually and enrolls over 57,000 students.
A visitation panel, created to look into the affairs of the university between 2016 and 2020 detected cases of financial abuses from top officials and ordered the university to close accounts with commercial banks. On 7 October 2022, Folasade Ogunsola was appointed vice chancellor of the University of Lagos making her the first female to attain such height in the University.
UNILAG was founded in 1962, two years after the independence of Nigeria from Britain. It was one of the first five universities created in the country, now known as "first generation universities". Eni Njoku was appointed as the first black vice-chancellor of the university in 1962, and he remained in office till 1965 when he was replaced by Saburi Biobaku. However, due to controversy surrounding his appointment, Saburi was stabbed by Kayode Adams, a student radical who believed Biobaku's appointment was unfair and ethnically motivated.
On 29 May 2012, the then President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, proposed to rename the University of Lagos to Moshood Abiola University in honour of Moshood Abiola, who died in jail as a political prisoner in 1998. The proposed name change became a subject of protests from students and alumni. The proposal was consequently jettisoned as the Nigerian federal government gave in to the protests incited by the proposed name change.
Folasade Ogunsola is the current vice chancellor, she was appointed on 7 October 2022 and assumed office on 12 November 2022.
There has been reports of sexual misconduct levelled against several lecturers at the university which the university denied. In 2019, BBC Africa Eye reported that "female reporters were sexually harassed, propositioned and put under pressure by senior lecturers at the institutions – all the while wearing secret cameras". An investigative documentary was produced by former victims of the sexual harassment which was uploaded to YouTube. As of 2024, University of Lagos prides itself of being among the female-friendly tertiary institutions in the country with more females as principal officers and directors.
The university has remained one of the most competitive in the country in terms of admissions. With approximately 57,000 students as of 2013, the University of Lagos has one of the largest student populations of any university in the country. The University of Lagos is one of the twenty-five federal universities which are overseen and accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC).
A recent publication of Forbes magazine ranked the school as the third best university in Africa for entrepreneurship after University of Cape Town and Makerere University, tagging University of Lagos the "startup powerhouse" college for Nigerian students.
The University has been called "The university of first choice and the nation's pride." The university's research activity was one of the major criteria used by the National Universities Commission (NUC) in adjudging the university as the best university in Nigeria at the Nigerian University System Annual Merit Award (NUSAMA) in 2008.
The University of Lagos, College of Medicine is associated with Lagos University Teaching Hospital(LUTH). On 29 June 2020, the university received robots, CRZR, from platform capital as a donation to fight the spread of COVID-19.
Centre for Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Management (CEBCEM) The centre, established in April 2018, focuses on biodiversity management, conservation and monitoring of sustainable ecosystem through collaborative research. CEBCEM provides a platform for research and education for students of tertiary institutions as well as advocate for environmental awareness. The Centre for Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Management is the response of the University of Lagos to the threat of biodiversity in Nigeria. This response includes proposing local solutions to biodiversity conservation challenges which is facilitated through institution research grants such as TETfund.
The current principal members of the university administration and their positions are as follows:
The university has educated many notable alumni, eminent scientists, politicians, lawyers, business icons, writers, entertainers, monarchs, countless technocrats, recipients of the Nigerian national order of merit, fellows of the various learned academies. As of September 2020, one Nobel Prize laureate and one Pulitzer Prize laureate have been affiliated with University of Lagos as students, alumni, faculty, or staff.
Amongst the alumni of the University of Lagos, Akoka and other institutions that fall under that banner are;