… As 41 others get first class
By Felix Khanoba
former President Olusegun Obasanjo has bagged a PhD from the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and would on Saturday graduate together with about 41 other students of the institution who made first class degree.
The graduation will be the institutiona��s seventh convocation ceremony.
Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu, who made this known on Monday in Abuja, said a total of 14,771 students would be graduated during the convocation scheduled for NOUNa��s headquarters in Abuja. The former president would be the first to graduate from NOUN with a PhD.
He said the graduating 14,771 students was the highest number in the history of the Nigerian University System, adding that the feat was made possible through efficient management of studentsa�� data by the universitya��s own staff instead of the hitherto external vendors.
While commending Obasanjo for being the first student to graduate with PhD from NOUN, the VC said the convocation, which will be heralded by a lecture to be delivered on Friday by the Vice Chancellor of Igbinedion University, Okada, Prof. Eghosa Osagie, would be the most historic in the country.
He said, a�?So far we have harvested and (about to) graduate 14,771 students. This is historic for us because this is the largest number of students graduated at a single time by any university in Nigeria.
a�?The second reason this convocation is very historical is that one of the graduates is the first PhD that the university is going to graduate despite the fact that the university has been in existence for all these years.
a�?We have not been able to produce PhDs and the reason is before you produce PhD you must graduate students at academic masters programme before you can involve them in a PhD.
a�?However, there is a facility where you can have a masters/PhD, and once you start the programme and your progress is very good and you take an examination you can now roll over and do your PhD, and it is only one candidate that has been able to do that, and that candidate on Saturday by Goda��s grace the university Senate has approved that he should be awarded a degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Christian Theology, and the candidate is His Excellency, Olusegun Obasanjo.
Speaking further, the VC said two of the graduating students are inmates of the Enugu Prison, adding that the university has rolled out free education scheme for prisoners from graduate to postgraduate levels.
OBJ bags PhD, graduates from NOUN
