By Tosin Adesile
A total number of 561 will bag first class degree certificates at the 55th Convocation Ceremony of the University of Lagos from a total of 16,343 graduands.
Addressing the Press Conference, Professor Folashade Ogunsola, Vice Chancellor also announced that three distinguished Nigerians will be awarded honorary degrees. The recipients to be conferred with honorary degrees are: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO); Fola Adeola, co-founder of Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank Plc), and Kolawole Adesina, the group managing director (GMD) of Sahara Power Group.
Speaking further, She announced that distinguished Professor Babajide Alo and distinguished Professor Kayode Amund will be awarded the award of Professor Emeritus.
Ogunsola announced Damilare Adebakin and Samuel Badekale, both from the Department of Cell Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Science, as the best-graduating students with a perfect Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 5.0.
They are closely followed by Olamide Emida, a student from the Department of Accounting, who achieved a 4.95 CGPA.
The convocation lecture titled “Universities as Hubs for Development and Wealth Creation” will be chaired by former Governor of Lagos State and former Minister of Works, Babajide Fashola, and delivered by the CEO of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), Tayo Aduloju.
Giving a breakdown of the results, Mrs Ogunsola said out of the 16,409 graduands, 561 will be awarded first-class degrees and distinctions, 3,916 will be awarded second-class upper, 3,763 with second-class lower, 1,143 with third-class, and 78 pass degrees.
She noted that 223 are unclassified Pharmacy, Basic and Clinical Sciences degrees.
Of the 6,659 postgraduate degrees, the VC said there are 513 graduates with a postgraduate diploma, 5,933 are graduating with Masters and 213 with PhD.
She noted that the overall best PhD thesis award goes to Adetoun Akintoye with a PhD in chemistry, while the best PhD in humanities goes to Eniola Ladipo.
The convocation ceremonies will commence officially on the 10th of January with a Jumat service and an exhibition of innovation while it will climax on 19 January with a thanksgiving service.
