The vice-chancellor and management of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) on Wednesday celebrated a law professor, Taiwo Osupitan, who retired after 43 years of excellent service and launched an annual legacy fund for outstanding doctoral law students.

The law faculty and department of public law held a valedictory ceremony at the institution’s main auditorium in honour of Mr Osipitan’s decades-old distinguished career in academia.

Mr Osipitan launched the Legacy Fund for Doctoral Research in Public Law, designed to support outstanding legal scholars.

Dignitaries in attendance include former vice president Yemi Osinbajo, Ogun State governor represented by Olatokunbo Joseph Talabi, president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya and senior lawyer Wole Olanipekun and professor Akin Oyebode.

The UNILAG vice-chancellor, Folasade Ogunsola, praised Mr Osipitan as a man of high intellect who knew to inculcate his courtroom experience into his lectures to provide sound teachings to his students.

Ms Ogunsola stated, “I also appreciate the way he combined his academic responsibilities with professional legal practice. His courtroom experience has enriched his teaching, while his academic work has strengthened his engagement with the law in practice.”

Ms Ogunsola said Mr Osipitan’s balanced teachings have enriched the knowledge of generations of students who passed through him.

She added, “This relationship between scholarship and professional experience has undoubtedly benefited generations of students and colleagues.”

Mr Osipitan was awarded the Justice Somolu Memorial Prize for Best Student in Civil Procedure at the Nigerian Law School in 1981. He obtained his master’s degree from the London School of Economics in 1982.

He came under the UNILAG employ as a member of the National Youth Service Corps on 1982 and was subsequently hired fulltime in 1983.

In 1998, he became a professor of public law and by 2002, a senior advocate of Nigeria.

UNILAG elevated and designated him the Distinguished Professor of Law in May 2018.

He was a member of the Constitution Debating and Coordinating Committee which drafted and amended the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.