University of Ibadan

The University of Ibadan (UI), affectionately known as the Premier University, is the oldest degree-awarding institution in Nigeria. It was founded in 1948 as University College Ibadan in special relationship with the University of London, and became a full independent university in 1962. Located in Ibadan, Oyo State, about 70 miles inland from Lagos, UI carries the institutional designation “001” as a permanent mark of its place at the head of Nigerian higher education.

The campus is widely considered one of the most beautiful in Africa, designed by the modernist architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in the tropical modernist style of the 1950s. UI enrolls roughly 33,000 students across 20 faculties spanning the arts, sciences, medicine, law, agriculture, technology, and the social sciences. Its Postgraduate School is the largest in Africa, with the postgraduate cohort accounting for about half of total enrollment and producing roughly 3,000 Masters degrees and 250 PhDs every year. The College of Medicine works in close partnership with the University College Hospital (UCH), Nigeria’s flagship teaching hospital.

UI is consistently the top-ranked university in Nigeria. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026, it reclaimed the #1 spot in Nigeria with a placement in the 801–1000 global band, ahead of all other Nigerian institutions. EduRank places UI at #1 in Nigeria across more than ten major subject areas including Medicine, Biology, Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science, Economics, Psychology, and Liberal Arts. As a federal university, UI charges no formal tuition; mandatory session fees for new undergraduates fall in the range of ₦34,300 to ₦36,800. The University Alumni Office reports more than 150,000 alumni across 160 countries, including Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, novelist Chinua Achebe, environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, and former Commonwealth Secretary-General Emeka Anyaoku.