A Professor of Operational Research at the Faculty of Management Science, University of Lagos, Emmanuel O. Oyatoye has called on government to adopt operational research models to aid national development.
He made the call on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, while delivering the 25th Inaugural Lecture of the institution in the 2021/2022 Academic Session at the J. F. Ade-Ajayi Auditorium.
The lecture had in attendance distinguished Nigerians including a former Minister of Health and the inaugural lecturer’s academic mentor, Professor Eyitayo Lambo, colleagues from the university, students, former students, mentees, friends, and families.
Titled “Models: Catalyst for System Diagnosis and Decision Making”, the lecture focused on ways models could be used to diagnose systems for strategic decision-making; particularly where complex decision that has multiple stages are involved.
According to Professor Oyatoye, “decisions should not only be based on tangible factors that are quantifiable alone but also intangible factors that are crucial (not measurable) to the problem being analysed and which could have dire consequences on the decision arrived at if ignored ’’.
The event marked an opportunity for the immediate past Dean of Faculty of Management Sciences to show ways on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) can be applied in addressing the problem of poverty, which he averred is multi-dimensional. His lecture also corroborated Saaty’s (1994) position that the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is the most recognized method of preference elicitation.
Professor Oyatoye’s lecture underscored the importance of providing a responsive, quality healthcare delivery system, and understanding patient satisfaction within the healthcare sector; improving subscriber’s preferences for service attributes of mobile telecommunication in Nigeria as well as investigating the continued congestion being experienced within the maritime sector, with the use of (AHP).
He also called on the private sector to embrace the use of meaningful models in their decision-making, noting that the present economic realities meant that the town-and-gown relationship should be more strengthened to address areas of problems affecting them.
Professor Oyatoye who hails from Oro Town in Irepodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, was born on the 25th day of June, 1955.
The erudite scholar joined the services of the University of Lagos in 1999 as a Lecturer I at the Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences, after servicing meritoriously for several years in the polytechnic education system, and private sector. He rose to through the ranks to Professor of Operational Research in August 2017.
