UniAbuja graduates 10,331 students, to honour Ethiopian Prime Minister

THE authorities of the University of Abuja will confer honorary doctorate degree on the Ethiopia Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, on Saturday, where a total of 10,331 students will be graduated at the 24th convocation ceremony of the University.

Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Rasheed Na’Allah, announced this on Thursday in Abuja while briefing newsmen on the activities lined up for the convocation ceremony holding at the Main Campus of the University.

He disclosed that 26 students bagged First Class, 866 Second Class Upper, Second Class Lower 2,317, Third Class 339, and Pass 52.

He said the university would be conferring honorary doctorate degree on the Ethiopian Prime Minister who incidentally won Nobel Peace Price recently, in line with the value of the university for peace and mutual understanding, saying immediately Ahmed came in as the Prime Minister, he brought peace to Eritrea at the peak of the crisis.

He added that a former Chief of Army Staff, and one time Governor of Kwara State, Alwali Jauji Kazir, would also be honoured with a doctorate degree at the convocation.

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The Vice-Chancellor disclosed that the University Senate has also approved 4-year Academic Calendar ahead as part of efforts to ensure stable and regular academic calendar such that students would be able to clear from when they come in the day to graduate.

Na’Allah, however, appealed to the members of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and other staff Unions to corporate with the University management to achieve this goal, saying grievances could be appropriately handled instead of the closedown of the school.

He said the university has strategised to strengthen the students to become solution providers for the nation, saying one of the major problems of Nigeria was unemployment and that there was the need to graduate students that are globally competitive.

While wooing private investors to the UniAbuja, he lamented the encroachment into the land of the university by neighbouring communities and vowing that very soon the institution would go after those occupying the land mapped out for the development of the first Federal University in Abuja.

He said the university endowed with enormous natural resources in terms of rivers, mountains and hills would be turned into a tourist attraction.

The Vice-Chancellor also disclosed that the university has made it compulsory for every department in the institution to have an industry partner where the undergraduate students would be regularly deployed on internship.