The Kogi State governor, Alhaji Ahmed Ododo, on Saturday granted automatic employment to the best graduating students of the Confluence University of Science and Technology, (CUSTECH), Osara, across faculties.
The Governor who gave the directive while speaking at the maiden combined convocation ceremony of the institution at the CUSTECH convocation ground, commended the immediate-past governor of the state, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, for his vision in establishing the university.
While commending the pioneer students and staff of the institution for their resilience, commitment, and sacrifice, the governor noted that the end has truly justified the means.
He noted that as a cardinal objective of government, his administration will continue to provide the environment for the university to thrive in the face of contending demands from the lean resources available, adding that this was in recognition of the pivotal role universities play in the human capital development of the citizenry.
“We shall continue to commit reasonable resources to their development, to make them qualitative, accessible and affordable.
“I am determined more than ever before to continue to do more in encouraging excellence in the state ivory towers to make them fall within the first brackets in progressive Universities index in the country.
“We shall keep faith with the dream to uphold the legacies of the founding father.
“Our focus is to make the three State Universities, spread across the three Senatorial Districts of the State, Centres of Excellence, to ensure their mobility and enhance competitiveness on the national scale.
“I hope that in no time, they will start to record significant scientific and technological breakthroughs to justify their existence,” Ododo stated.
Speaking on the initial security challenges of the university, the governor asserted that the government has put formidable security measures in place to ensure the security of lives and property of both students and staff of the institution.
He stressed that notwithstanding the daunting challenges that confronted the CUSTECH on its way of growth, statistics have shown that the University has successfully weathered the storm of initial security threat and has continued to record upward mobility of intakes.
“This underscores the commendable pioneering efforts of the managers of the University. I thank you for the painstaking effort to immediately reverse the initial threat to the University community to now make CUSTECH a University of destination,” he concluded.
