The Vice Chancellor, Federal University Of Oye Ekiti, Prof. Kayode Soremekun, has said that it is wrong for Nigerian universities to make honorary doctorate degrees the exclusive right of the wealthy people in the society.
Soremekun, who spoke at a pre-convocation press briefing in Oye Ekiti, said the university was set to confer the honorary doctorate degree, in Educational Administration on the first indigenous principal of Queens College, Lagos, Mrs Efunjoke Coker.
He stated that the award ceremony would form part of the maiden convocation programme of the university, which would begin on April 24.
Also to receive honorary degrees are a former principal of Ekiti Parapo College, Ido Ekiti, Ekiti State, Chief Adepoju Akomolafe, and an 89-year-old retired school principal of Christ School, Ado Ekiti, Mr. Francis Daramola.
Soremekun said the 100-year-old and others would be honoured for their exemplary contributions to the uplift of education standard in Nigeria.
He said,”The gesture is to remember these great Nigerians, who had in their own ways contributed to scholarship.It is sad that we are all suffering from amnesia which makes us forget people so easily. The people we remember only are politicians and, with this, we will be setting a new moral standard for the Nigerian society.”
Reeling out his achievements since he assumed office about a year ago, the VC said there were three new faculties and 19 new programmes with enhanced infrastructure and a new lecture theatre and classrooms in Oye and Ikole campuses.
Soremekun added that the university had received a message of collaboration from the Programme Director of the Social Science Research Council of New York, United States of America, in the area of academic uplift and research.
According to him, the proposed academic partnership will serve as a veritable avenue to launch the institution to global reckoning and boost its ranking on Webometrics.
“The Council would be drawing their participants from FUOYE, Liberia, Sierra Leone and other West African nations.
“This is unprecedented considering the age of the university. With this partnership, we will put FUOYE on the global radar of scholarship,” he said.
Source: Punch
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