The Commonwealth Youth Council (CYC) has honoured the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali (OON), with the "Nelson Mandela Most Revered African Patriot Award of Excellence" just as it presented the University with the "Most Performing Institution Award". CYC is the official representative voice of the more than 1.2 billion young people in the Commonwealth countries and it was established in 2013 with the support of the Commonwealth Secretariat's Youth Programme. It was endorsed by the Commonwealth Heads of Government at their biennial summit in Sri Lanka as an "autonomous, youth-led" organisation.

According to him, "Those people that came here are not my colleagues. They are people from outside of this University parading themselves as representatives of the national executive council of ASUU". The ASUU Chairman confirmed that indeed there were talks between the national leadership of the body and the local branch which started during the tenure of his immediate predecessor in office, Prof. Abdulrasheed Adeoye, on modalities for reintegrating the University of Ilorin into the national ASUU.

He said, "We made them realise that we are not averse to joining the national but that we need to approach issues systematically. If you recall, the University of Ilorin, following the 2001 crisis, had been suspended by the national ASUU and has been sanctioned for 15 years. Very prominent members of ASUU of this University have been expelled by the national ASUU. And there are seven court cases that has emanated from this crisis. We were of the opinion that to be able to discuss with clear mind with each other, these court cases have to be withdrawn; we have two, they have five. We were ready to withdraw our own, let them cause their own to be withdrawn. They should lift the sanction; they should lift the expulsion on our elders because there are very little discussions that will take place without the involvement of those critical elders in this University. But the last meeting we had with the zonal coordinator, he promised he was going to take the discussions and the conditions we have given to the national and we are expecting the outcome of that and the next thing we heard was that election was going to hold at the University of Ilorin on the 20th of April.

"To us, it sounded strange because ASUU is an organisation of intellectuals. There is no other organisation, without being immodest, that can parade the quality and the quantity of intellectuals ASUU parades. We don't expect that they should be found wanting thinking that in a University that has been on suspension for 15 years, election should be the first thing. In a University that has endured sanction for 15 years, election should not be the first thing. In any case, it is not strange to us because it is the usual commando approach that they are known for. They have done this in 2001, it failed, they have done it some other time, it failed and there are good indications that this latest one is going to fail", Dr. Raheem maintained.