No less than 243 students bagged first class out of 3,568, comprising undergraduates and postgraduates, including 217 PhD candidates at the 23rd convocation ceremony of Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo, Ogun, held on Sunday.
Fatimah Lawal of the Department of Economics emerged as the overall best graduating student with a 4.97 CGPA on a scale of 5.
The overall best postgraduate in the PhD programme was the duo of Oladele Alabi and Emmanuel Okpechi, both with a CGPA of 4.91 on a scale of 5, while Oluwabamise Adeniyi was the overall best Master’s degree graduate with a CGPA of 4.89 out of a possible 5.0 points.
Fatimah also won the President’s Award for being the overall best performance in leadership, academics, community, and spiritual services; Senior Vice-President’s award, School Deans Award, and Best Academic Program Award.
Speaking at the event held at the university’s stadium, the President/Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Ademola Tayo, congratulated the fresh graduands, their parents, and the university community on the achievement, saying the efforts have no equal.
He noted that the university’s academic programmes were fully accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC), the West African College of Physicians, the International Board of Education( IBE), and the Adventist Accrediting Association (AAA).
“Aside that, we now have all our courses 100 percent NUC’s fully accredited, and the agency has also given approval for us to run Cybersecurity, Information System, Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution,” he added.
The vice-chancellor, while disclosing that he has served for almost 10 years, said; “As the VC and I would be leaving the office on December 1, 2025, we equally noted that the university’s faculty members have won many research grants for life-changing projects in the last year, even as graduates of the school continue to take leadership roles in various spheres of life”.
He mentioned that the institution’s Centre for Open and Distance Learning has its first set of graduates during this convocation event.
Tayo said the University would continue to pursue the path of excellence with passion and spirituality, urging the graduates not to keep their eyes on the things that were transient but on those wholesome values and virtues that they derived from the institution.
He stated that Nigeria’s developmental challenges awaited their contributions in the form of solutions.
“So, go out there, explore the available opportunities. You have responsibilities for Nigeria and the rest of the world. Use your knowledge and skills, engage in volunteer service to your communities, be prayerful and continue to learn. Wherever you are, be a good ambassador of Babcock University.”
Giving a commencement address, the guest speaker, Dr Kudakwashe Tagwirei, from Zimbabwe, underscored the importance of university education, urging graduands to use their acquired knowledge and skills to make substantial contributions to the development of Nigeria and Africa by extension.
According to him, Nigeria is the biggest market in Africa, and you should explore the opportunity, be innovative, and bring new technology to impact Africa.
Also speaking, the chancellor of the university, Prof Bassey Idoh, congratulated the graduands and commended the university’s management for their hard work and commitment to producing the new graduates.
