10 Ph.D students, 760 others graduate as Adeleke University holds 7th convocation

ADELEKE University, Ede, Osun State, rounded off events marking its seventh convocation last weekend with the certification of 770 graduates, including the first set of the Ph.D graduates of the 10-year-old institution.

The President/Vice-Chancellor, Professor Solomon Adebola, in a speech, announced that the first set of the university’s B.Sc Nursing students were also graduating at the convocation where 36 students emerged with first class honours.

Professor Adebola noted that the university had recorded tremendous accomplishments within 10 years of its establishment and commended all the stakeholders, especially the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, Dr Adedeji Adeleke, for ensuring that the institution maintained its pride of place among private universities in Nigeria. 

He congratulated the graduands, saying “you have fought a good fight and today, before this wonderful audience, we are going to admit you into the hallowed chamber of Adeleke greats as alumni.”

The vice chancellor said: “For the first time, we are graduating the first set of B.NSc Nursing, who are having three other qualifications, and 10 brand new Ph.D graduates from four faculties. I feel elated and thank God for our Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, Dr Adedeji Adeleke; the Provost of the Post Graduate College and the entire Adeleke University community. 

“We are releasing a total of 770 graduands from six faculties, the highest ever in the history of this university and I congratulate our graduands, their parents and sponsors for cooperating with us throughout your stay here during your undergraduate and postgraduate studies. 

“To the graduands, you have indeed fought a great intellectual battle. You will remember that not all of you that came in are seated here today. It takes discipline, hard work and denial of certain pleasures to emerge as the main reason for this august gathering. 

“For the past two, three, four or five years, you have been nurtured in a ‘simulated’ world where everything is provided for you. Your lives have been regimented and you do not have much choice but to comply or tolerate. But in the next few hours, you will be free only to depend on your values, principles and beliefs. 

“As a faith-based institution of higher learning, we have shared with you some of these values, principles and beliefs and I want to believe that you really imbibed them. As this ceremony will soon be over, your personality would no longer be judged by the course you studied or the religious denomination to which you belong, all that the society would need from you is the content of your character. At that point, let them know that you are a product of this great institution, Adeleke University.”

Professor Adebola urged the graduands to see their graduation as a means to an end and not an end in itself, saying  the certificates they were receiving would open doors for them. 

“I want to implore you to walk through these doors because you are qualified. As an alumnus of Adeleke University, one thing you must not forget is that life is about giving back. The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, Dr Adedeji Tajudeen Adeleke, has exemplified this virtue and I encourage you to replicate the same virtue whenever fortune smiles at you, no matter how small it might be,”  he added.

The “Commencement Speaker” at the event, Chief Tunde Hassan-Odukale, Chairman, First Bank Nigeria Plc, spoke on ‘Strategy for Growth and Development: Human Capital’, where he implored the graduands not to go into the world merely as another set of graduands to flood the job market but as an asset to an ailing nation. 

Earlier, on Thursday, 15 July, 2021, Professor Olusegun Ajibola, a former president of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), delivered the convocation lecture entitled ‘The Youth, The Career in a Self-Reliant Age’.

Professor Ajibola urged the graduands to rise up to the occasion and become employers of labour as “there is hardly anybody to look up to as potential employer of labour in Nigeria’s fragile economy.”

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