One of the milestones for the celebration of Pastor (Mrs) Faith Oyedepo’s 63rd birthday on Friday, 5th February 2021 was the move to expand the frontiers of the professional partnership existing between Landmark University and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) towards enhancing the Department of Accounting to provide a fully integrated staff and student academic and strategic professional solution thereby making them stand out globally. 

In his remarks during the virtual meeting, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adeniyi Olayanju noted the significant role, as well as the unwavering support, of the Regent and Vice-President (Education) Pastor (Mrs) Faith Oyedepo towards the giant strides and the attendant accolades of Landmark University on her recent position in the universities global ranking. Emphasizing her penchant for excellence and best practices, the Vice-Chancellor expressed confidence in her continued commitment to the vision of the University. While anticipating greater accomplishments in the 2021 Times Higher Education (THE) Universities Impact ranking through the SDGs research agenda, he expressed conviction that the deliverables of the ACCA strategic partnership would be valuable, identifying their propositions as steps in the right direction. He, therefore, urged ACCA to fast track the Memorandum of Understanding within the next few weeks for further actions. “I believe the Department of Accounting has a very strong structure, the Landmark Professional Accountancy Centre (LPAC), to accommodate the training of our students by ACCA,“ the Vice-Chancellor added.

Earlier while welcoming the represenatives of ACCA, the Registrar, Miss Fola Oyinloye had noted the meeting was strategic because it came on a day of celebration of Pastor Mrs Oyedepo whose commitment to the University’s advancement could not be overlooked. She, therefore, emphasized the readiness of the University to advance with a value-adding organisation as ACCA. 

Speaking on the proposition, the leader of the ACCA team, the Country Head, ACCA Nigeria, Mr Tom Isibor noted that ACCA and Landmark have several shared values which culminated in their interest to support and add value to her drive for excellence while stating their commitment to providing services that would enrich staff and student professionalism. He stated that only leading universities in the country were nominated for the strategic partnership by ACCA and that the recent universities ranking qualified Landmark for the upward review. “I am proud to say Landmark University falls into the very few number of universities that we regard as lead universities and these are categories of universities that we want to have a strategic partnership with based on our engagement, investment opportunities and relations.” Mr Isibor noted. He, thereafter, congratulated Landmark on the ranking, other laudable milestones and the successful celebration of Pastor Mrs Oyedepo’s 63rd birthday.

According to the Business Development Manager Lagos and West, ACCA Nigeria, Ms Aderonke Adebule, some of the ACCA offers include amongst others developing well-rounded ACCA finance professionals, three students nurturing engagements annually, professional insights webinars, annual representation of university delegates to the regional Learning Partner Conference (LPC) and the virtual GLPC, Teaching Support Resources (Education Hub, TtT, webinars Tech Accounting E-magazines etc.), networking and internationalisation. She revealed in her presentation that part of the partnership plan would include making the University ACCA centre in Kwara State. In furtherance of their revelation and commitment to bridge the gap between academics and professionalism, Ms Adebule stated that the association would like to train and support five members of the University Faculty as ACCA facilitators.

Also speaking, the Head of Department Accounting, Dr Ben-Caleb Egbeide expressed the excitement of the Department over the value of the ACCA expanded partnership, noting that in addition to the other certifying professional bodies in the department, ACCA would give Landmark University students competitive advantage in their professional endeavours. 

It is worthy of note that Landmark University through L-PAC has produced two outstanding members of ACCA from the Department of Accounting and Finance over the years. King Oluwatobi Oladiran emerged one of the top three (3) global affiliates in Nigeria in the December 2016 Examination while Miss Roselyn Hermas-Efenudu, a pioneer graduate, ranked number 5 in Nigeria and 16 in the world in the June 2015 diet.