By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Vice President of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo on Saturday left Abuja for the United States where he is expected to deliver a Special Lecture at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in Philadelphia on Monday, April 24.
The vice president would also participate in an interactive session with students and faculty coordinated by Wale Adebanwi, Professor of Africana Studies at the UPenn, the vice president’s spokesman, Laolu Akande said in a statement on Saturday.
Hosted by the University’s Center for Africana Studies, the lecture will be themed around Climate Change and a Just Transition of energy.
The centre is hosting Osinbajo’s Special Lecture in partnership with other faculties of the University such as PennCarey Law, Perry World House, Wharton Business School, Coalition for Equity and Opportunity and Perelman School of Medicine.
The vice president is a vocal voice and strong advocate for a Just Energy Transition for Africa and the developing world.
At the moment, he is spearheading efforts aimed at creating the African Carbon Market as one of the pathways of a just and sustainable transition.
UPenn which is one of the eight private universities known as the Ivy League in the US was initially established in 1740 as a charity school.
It was later transformed into an academy in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin, a future founding father of the US who also served as the first president of the Board of Trustees of the University.
It was founded through the merger of the Afro-American Studies Programme and the Center for the Study of Black Literature and Culture at the University of Pennsylvania in 2015.