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… Dickson Announces Automatic Employment for First-Class Graduands
By Amos Okioma, Yenagoa
A total of 91 graduands of the Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island in Bayelsa State bagged First-Class honours, as the university held its 5th combined convocation ceremony for a total of 15,811 graduands.
Presenting an address at the Amassoma campus over the weekend, vice chancellor of the institution, Professor Samuel Edoumiekumo, said the 5th combined convocation featured graduands of the 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17 academic sessions.
Others included in the convocation, he said, were graduands of the 2017/18 and the 2018/19 academic sessions.
Edoumiekumo said among the 15,811 convoking graduands, 619 bagged post-graduate degrees, comprising 145 Masters Degrees and 15 Doctors of Philosophy, while 14,892 are to receive first degrees.
A total of 459 graduands bagged post-graduate diplomas, just as 2818 graduated with Second-Class upper division, 8,100 with Second-Class lower division while 3,939 made third class, and a total of 244 graduands finished with a pass.
Professor Edoumiekumo commended the state governor, Seriake Dickson, for giving the institution and education a boost by funding infrastructural projects and others, pleading with him to do more, within his remaining weeks in office as governor, to give the school backup in its academic programmes and developmental needs.
While reiterating his commitment to building on achievements recorded from his inception in office as the vice chancellor, Edoumiekumo noted that following the contributions of the present governor and all former governors of the state to the institution, some infrastructure in the school have been named after them.
In his remarks, the Bayelsa State governor and visitor to the school, Seriake Dickson charged the graduands to look beyond the abundant oil and gas in the Niger Delta, adding that it is expected that they should be providers rather than being job seekers.
The governor promised that within his remaining days in office he would look into the issues confronting the university with a view to solving them before leaving office just as he approved automatic employment for all first-class graduands of the institution.
“Vice chancellor I’ve heard your almost myriads of complains. As the visitor to the university and governor, like I said the problems of a university cannot be all solved just in one day or by a single administration, but I want to specially invite you through the honourable commissioner for Education and the chairman, governing council to a meeting before I leave office so that together we can solve some of the teething issues you have raised. But the NDU is the premier university of this great state, so you must continue to play the role of mentorship to other institutions of learning owned by our great state,” he said.
Meanwhile, the pro-chancellor and chairman governing council of the NDU, Barrister Mathew Seyeifagha, has charged graduands and students of the institution to be worthy ambassadors of the school.
The pro-chancellor gave the charge in his remarks at the convocation ceremony, stating that the institution has the enabling environment to serve as an avenue for intellectual and capacity development.
