- As FOUYE graduates 8,444, confers honorary degrees on four eminent Nigerians at 9th convocation
From Priscilla Ediare, Ado-Ekiti
The Chairman of Air Peace Airline, Dr Allen Onyema has called on the private sector, business entrepreneurs and the affluent in the country to contribute to the development of the education sector
The Air Peace boss who opined that education should be part of human rights, said that developing the sector should not be the sole responsibility of the government.
According to him, the private sector, business entrepreneurs, and well-meaning individuals among others should by way of scholarships and donations contribute to higher institutions, which he said will go a long way in addressing the challenges confronting universities in the country.
Onyema made the remarks while responding to questions from newsmen on how to address the challenges confronting tertiary institutions in the country at the 9th Convocation ceremonies of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) held at the Oye campus of the university at the weekend.
At the ceremony, the 8,444 graduands (Undergraduate and Postgraduate) were awarded various degrees.
In the undergraduate category, out of 8,191 graduands, 177 bagged First Class Honours 3,466 got Second Class Upper Division, 3715 earned Second Class Lower Division, 831 Third Class and 02 got Pass.
Out of the 253 graduands in the Postgraduate category,38 were awarded PhD, 211 bagged MSc/MBA and 04 got PGD.
Also, the institution conferred honorary doctorate degrees (Honoris Causa) on four eminent Nigerians for their immense contributions to the country.
They are former Attorneys-General and Minister of Justice of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Kanu Agabi (SAN) and Adebayo Ojo(SAN) who were conferred the Degrees of Doctor of Private Law and Doctor of Public Law respectively.
The Chairman of Air Peace Airline, Chief Allen Onyema was conferred the Degree of Doctor of Business Administration and the Managing Director, First Bank of Nigeria, Segun Alebiosu received the Degree of Doctor of Banking and Finance.
The Air Peace founder said, “Education should not be left in the hands of the government alone, the private sector must be involved in seeing that education goes round.
“In fact, education is part of human rights, to me, it is part of human rights. If you deprive anybody of education that is like suicide. It is like murder. It should be made part of human rights in the modern world.
“Without education you are nothing. Education empowers you. Education makes life easier for everyone. So, everybody deserves to be educated.
“And tertiary education also is very important. It should not be left in the hands of the government. The private sector must see what they can do to contribute and all of us business entrepreneurs we must give back to the society either through scholarships or making certain donations to institutions to help them run their universities.”
Expressing delight at the honorary degree, the Air Peace Chief Executive Officer said, “They felt the need to honour some Nigerians and I happen to be one of them. So, I feel privileged and honoured to be considered among the four people they honoured today.
“So, to me, it is a challenge for me to do more. Whatever I must have been doing before that made them to recognize me, it is like putting another burden on my shoulder to do more, to sustain it. So, It is something heartwarming and it makes one feel good.”
In his address, The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman Governing Council of FUOYE, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, thanked President Bola Tinubu for his immense contributions to the development of the Ivory Tower.
He appealed to the president for more support to enable the university to achieve its mission and vision of being the fastest-growing university in the country.
“This University is grateful to you, Mr. President as you have contributed immensely to our development in human and material resources.
“It is worthy of mention that FUOYE has benefited from the goodwill of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration in bountiful ways, from TETFund Special Impact Projects to other interventions, NELFUND Students Loan Scheme, Federal Ministry of Education’s guidance in policy-making, as well as other supervisory agencies like National Universities Commission (NUC) and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
“While thanking Mr President, our visitor, for his immense support so far, we look forward to even more support to enable us achieve our mission and vision as the fastest-growing university in Nigeria.”
He continued, “The University Management deserves commendation for these attainments. These accomplishments speak volumes about the steadfastness, resoluteness and avowed commitment of the managers of the system, most especially the University Management under the leadership of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Sunday Fasina for making FUOYE the best in terms of administrative and academic excellence in the country and beyond.”
Speaking on his experience since he became the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman Governing Council of the university and how such appointments could bring transformational changes to federal institutions, Ndoma-Egba said, “Councils are supposed to be a check and management because it is the highest policy body in the university.
“It is the council that actually runs the university, so when you don’t have a council you allow the Vice Chancellors who are chief executives to operate more or less without supervision. So, councils are to moderate the activities of the management and to provide policy frameworks for the university.”
The Vice Chancellor of FUOYE, Prof. Sunday Fasina, thanked President Bola Tinubu for his steadfast support of the university. He also hailed him for the NELFUND student loan scheme, where over 3,000 FUOYE students have benefited from the loan.
Highlighting his administration’s achievements, Fasina said 156 legacy projects have been constructed under him in the last four years.
He said, “In the last four years we have been able to build 156 projects. What we did when we came on board, we said any project on this campus with a blue roof is this administration’s project.
“These projects are scattered all over the campus. Our own legacy is blue roof. All the buildings with blue roofs are our legacy projects.
“Over the past four years, FUOYE has welcomed the National Universities Commission (NUC) for resource verification and accreditation exercises, alongside professional bodies such as the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), and the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN).
“These achievements are the reasons why admission slots into the university are oversubscribed for more than 100 per cent in the last academic year.
“It is gratifying to note that FUOYE has consistently secured accreditation for its programmes. The University takes immense pride in prioritizing the delivery of high-quality academic programmes that meet and exceed regulatory standards.”
On his advice to the government concerning the funding of tertiary education in the country, Adebayo Ojo (SAN) said, “First of all, I thank God almighty for the honour. It is a recognition of the little contributions we have made to the country and it is a thing of joy to be honoured and appreciated, so I thank God for this honour.
“I thank the Chancellor, the Pro-Chancellor, and Chairman of Governing Council, the Vice Chancellor and everybody for finding us worthy to bestow these honours on us.”
Advising the government, the former Attorney General said, “Well, the first thing is that the government has taken a good step with this NELFUND because if you remember student loans existed in the 70s and 80s.
“A lot of people who were educated today did so because they had access to student loans. So, it is a good step which the president has taken. He made it in his campaign promises that he was going to and he fulfilled it. One of the things he fulfilled is this student loan and I want to thank him for It. It is a very good thing and it is appreciated. And FUOYE has benefited from it with over three billion naira disbursed to students.
“But on the budgetary allocation, I think the government should allocate more funding to the Ministry of Education and in turn to the various federal universities because the future lies in those universities in terms of Research and Development, what we call R&D.
“But we thank the government for what it is doing, but like Oliver Twist, we are asking that the government should allocate more funds to federal universities.
“Also, another way the government can ease the funding problem is to allow the universities spend the large chunk of their TSA funds, money that goes into TSA, instead of putting everything back to the government. They can work out a formula where a percentage of the funds, maybe 50 or 60 percent is allowed to be spent by the universities.”
Responding on behalf of the honorees, Agabi(SAN) thanked the management of the university for honouring them. He urged the federal government to initiate policies that will encourage people to invest in the country
“Speaking for myself I have always been envious of you Professors, Doctors and Academicians and often crave for the knowledge, discipline and contentment that we credit you with
“We who have been honoured are happy. We are very happy indeed. It is a monumental encouragement to aspire even more for the things of the mind and the intellect, particularly at this time when greed has taken the front seat.
“We humble ourselves before you in gratitude. Words do not suffice to express our gratitude.”
Agabi continued, “Nigeria is a great nation. It is even the greatest nation on earth if we just bend down and make sacrifices. We are not doing so now but we must not despair, we should not resort to violence, we should not give way to greed.
“When I heard of the achievements of this university in such a short time, I said to myself surely we are a great nation from East to West, North to South, Christians and Muslims together.
“I am not an economist but my native Intelligence tells me it is because those who have money fear to invest it that the nation is going down all the time. We are purchasing dollars and hiding them in our houses, the government must encourage those who have money to bring it out and invest it. We must encourage those who have monies abroad to bring them back and invest them here at home.
“The government must reexamine its approach and refrain from those policies that instil fear in the people and discourage the use of money.
“I am saying this because we are talking about the Managing Director of First Bank, we are talking about the Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, this is about money, government, Mr President encourage Nigerians, those who have monies abroad to bring them back, those who have monies in the country to invest it. Discourage whatever policies and programmes of the government that are discouraging investment or instilling fear in people.”
On his part, Senator Ayo Arise, a former National Assembly member and a native of Oye-Ekiti, expressed happiness at the achievements of the university within a very short period.
“I am very proud of what the university has achieved in a very short period. And the calibre of people that were honoured today with honorary degrees is a testament to what we should expect from Senator Ndoma-Egba and he is always going for the best and I think in subsequent years he will continue to improve on those who can assist in development and growth of this Federal University in Oye- Ekiti.
“I also extend a lot of gratitude to our President who has just blessed Ekiti with another Federal University in Iyin-Ekiti. They know this is the only commodity that we trade in as Ekiti people and we are very grateful to him.
“This is a challenge to our people in Ekiti to continue to embrace education. And for somebody like me coming from here, without a solid education, I probably will not be where I am today.
“So, I think it is the best thing that can happen to us from President Bola Tinubu apart from the fact that he has honoured Ekiti in terms of giving appointments. We are very grateful to him.”