Varsity to honour Tinubu, Sultan , Achebe with Honorary Awards

Rasaq Ibrahim, Ado Ekiti

Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) has announced plans to honour the former Lagos State Governor and the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar with doctoral honorary degrees.

The conferment of the honour will hold during the university’s 7th convocation scheduled for October 19, 2019.

Also to be conferred with honours are ; the Obi of Onitsha, HRMajesty, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe and an entrepreneur and Chairman/ Chief Executive Officer, Greeen Energy International Limited, Prof. Anthony Adegbulugbe.

Addressing a press conference in ABUAD on Monday heralding a weeklong Convocation ceremony and its 10th anniversary, the institution’s Acting-Vice Chancellor, Prof Smaranda Olarinde said the quartet deserve the honour

Prof. Olarinde said the awardees were carefully chosen based on their indelible marks on the sand of time and their contributions to nation building and humanity.

Speaking further on the honourary degrees, Olarinde said: “The quartet deserve to be celebrated. The beauty of honourary degrees is that, they are awarded to persons who are deserving of such honours having excelled in character and useful application of such intellect and academic excellence.

“In many cases, honourary degrees are rated higher than the degrees we all study to obtain since so many parameters are considered before they are bestowed on persons deserving them, so the persons we chose deserve to be celebrated”, he said.

Olarinde said Senator Tinubu was not chosen on the basis of his soaring political credentials because ABUAD was not a political entity.

She added that integrity, patriotism, selflessness were allowed to guide sense of judgement, saying the APC stalwart was considered worthy because of his unparalleled selfless services to humanity and nation-building.

The Acting Vice-Chancellor said Tinubu has helped thousands to rediscover lost destinies and gave hope to the hopeless and providing a compass for those wandering in the wilderness of difficulties and uncertainties.

“We didn’t consider Senator Bola Tinubu owing to political career but l was only found worthy because of his immense contribution to humanity and various selfless services that surpasses that of anybody in Nigeria”, she said.

The Acting Vice-Chancellor, disclosed that a total of 1088 will bag Bachelor and postgraduate degrees.

Reeling out the breakdown of the graduands, Olarinde said 979 and 109 will bag Bachelor and Master’s Degrees respectively.

Among the first degrees graduate are 99 students who made first-class, 419 made second class upper, 378 had second class lower degrees and 83 had third class degrees.

Olarinde said the university has risen geometrically within the last one decade, emerging the fastest growing citadel of learning in Africa and becoming a beacon of excellence for moral rebranding and research, thereby launching the country higher on the world map of academically viable nations.

About the superlative exploits made by the institution in ten years, the Acting Vice Chancellor said, the university’s 400 bed ABUAD Teaching hospital has made landmark breakthroughs in brain surgeries, open heart surgeries, opthalmic surgeries, acute renal dialysis and daily medical interventions to make improve the well being of the people.

She said the university’s Law Faculty , has been rated the best by the National Universities Commission(NUC) with the construction of Moot Court , Law Clinic , modern e-Library , Lexis Nexis and Computer Law and other accessories that can conveniently take care of 1,500 students.

The Acting Vice Chancellor added that the founder of the university, Chief Afe Babalola(SAN), has been leveraging on his contacts across the world to broker partnerships between ABUAD and other foreign universities in Europe, Asia and America.

She said : “We are greatly indebted to our founder , Chief Afe Babalola for giving the needed supports that has made us overshot our expectations in the first 10 years. It is on his shoulders we often lean to veer into the future of functional , quality and reformatory education in Nigeria.

“Even though we have overshot our expectations, we will not stop growing until we realize our plan of becoming one of the 100 best Universities in the world”, she said.