• As varsity graduates 17,464, produces 340 first class at 54th convocation
By Gabriel Dike
Son of a professor at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, David Oluwatomiwa Akanmu, has recorded a perfect score of 5.00 Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) to emerge the overall best for the 2021/2023 academic session.
The Vice Chancellor, Folasade Ogunsola, who disclosed this at the pre-convocation briefing, said the university produced 340 First Class graduates with 97 from the Faculty of Management Sciences, and 57 and 47 from the Faculty of Science with 57 and Faculty of Engineering respectively.
She revealed that 39 students obtained distinctions from the College of Medicine in different courses.
According to her, UNILAG would graduate 17,464 students, 10,578 are to receive first degrees and 6,886 for postgraduate. She also explained that 155 graduates would be conferred with Ph.D, including 31 international students with M.Sc degrees.
“This is the first time we will have such a harvest of international students at one convocation in the history of this university and this further reiterates and validates the aggressive internationalisation drive of this administration and previous administrations,” she said.
The vice chancellor announced the overall best PhD thesis award went to Aminat Olawunmi Ige, with a PhD in Mathematics, Faculty of Science while the best PhD in the humanities is Issa Akanji Adedokun with a PhD in Private and Property Law.
Ogunsola further disclosed the university business school would graduate its first set of students as an autonomous school.
“Sixty two students will graduate from the Business School and the overall best graduating student is Abiola Oluyemisi Itakpe with a CGPA of 4.84, who obtained the Master of Business Administration,” she said.
The university convocation lecture entitled: “Decolonising African Higher Education for Transformational Development,” would be delivered by Toyin Falola, professor of History at the University of Texas and under the chairmanship of Yemi Ogunbiyi, chairman of Tanus Communications, and former pro-chancellor, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.
She said the university would confer honorary doctorate degrees on three scholars, including Falola, Phyllis Kanki and Attahiru Jega, who have distinguished themselves by contributing to scholarship and societal development in various fields.
Falola is a chair of University of Texas, while Kanki is a professor of Immunology at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Through her work in West Africa, she was the first person to isolate HIV2, which causes a milder form of AIDS that was more commonly found in West Africa.
She contributed to Medical Education, HIV research and building research capacity across Nigeria, and Africa. Jega is a professor of Political Science and former Independent National Electoral Commission chairman.