•Prof. Deji Agboola
By Ayobami Ife, Abeokuta
Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) Ago Iwoye, Ogun State has produced 174 First Class graduates for 2021/22 and 2022/23 academic sessions with Miss Adegoke Azeezat Adenike of the Pharmacology department emerging as the overall best graduating student.
Adegoke Adenike scored 4.90 Cumulative Grade Point Aggregate (CGPA) for the 2022/23 academic session while the trifecta of Talabi Ayomide, Adesanya Damilola and Alabi Ifeoluwa of the Computer Science department emerging as the best graduating students for the 2021/22 academic session.
Each of the three – Talabi, Adesanya and Alabi, graduates with 4.86 CGPA.
Also, 1,756 made the Second Class Upper category regarding the 2021/22 session while 1,536 were listed as meeting the Second Class Upper division category for the 2022/23 academic session.
No fewer than 11,896 would be graduating at the 32nd and 33rd convocations of the university beside 112 others while would be awarded Doctorate Degrees in various disciplines.
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Ayodeji Agboola, disclosed this on Wednesday at the OOU main campus while briefing newsmen ahead of the 32nd and 33rd combined convocation ceremony of the University which began on Thursday with agriculture and engineering show, and convocation play titled, “The Corpse’s Comedy” by Nanabeyin Wartemberg.
Conferment of degrees begins on Monday, January 29 and ends on Wednesday with a convocation lecture titled, ‘Mass Exodus of Human Capital in Nigeria: An Anatomical Analysis of the Causes and Effects,’ which will be delivered by a legal luminary, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN.
The Vice Chancellor said that the revered Akarigbo of Remoland, Oba Babatunde Adewale Ajayi, and Mrs Bello Olusoga – two prominent Nigerians, would be honored with honorary Doctorate Degrees.
Fielding questions from newsmen, Prof. Agboola disclosed that absorbing their First Class graduates is statutory and if any of them also indicated interest in being employed by the university but expressed the concern that a good number of them weren’t interested in coming back to the academics.
He, however, preferred a situation where the best of the university products were employed by the larger society, where they would contribute their quota to the task of nation – building and development, explaining that the primary purpose of a university is to build the minds that would build the nation.
“We will be doing a de-service to the nation if we employ all of first class graduates, the essence of graduating students is to contribute to the human capacity and development of the nation. No nation will develop better than the products of their universities. Now that we are having best hands coming out of our universities, if they are employed all over the country, then they will be able to contribute their quota better than putting all of them here.
“Here we also have a policy before FG made that announcement. Our first class graduates if they are interested, we will employ them, it is statutory but let me also shock you. Majority of them are not interested in coming back to academics because we all know the obvious. I’m happy that we are producing best hands to assist the nation,” he said.
And justifying the choice of the Convocation lecture topic to be dissected by Chief Olanipekun, SAN, Prof. Agboola expressed worry over the human capital flight – japa, by Nigerians searching for greener pastures abroad, warning that the phenomenon portends grave danger to Nigerian culture.
“There may be some economic gains from the Japa Syndrome, but it is a way of destroying our culture. When people move en mass from a country to another country, and they don’t have the intention of coming back, then the culture of where they have moved from is being destroyed because they have gone to imbibe the culture of other people and forgetting theirs.
”Nigeria will never develop the way we want it if we all move abroad. Universities must take up the challenge, and that explains the choice of our convocation lecture titled “Mass exodus of human capital in Nigeria: An anatomical analysis of the causes and the effects,” to be delivered by Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, ” he said.
