Ahead of its 34th convocation, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, is set to award Governor Nyesom Wike with an honorary degree of Doctor of Law.
The Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Nlerum Okogbule, disclosed this at a news briefing in Port Harcourt on Monday, ahead of the university’s convocation scheduled from December 8, 2022, to December 10, 2022.
He disclosed that a total of 4,982 students would be convoking, with 56 receiving first-class honours and 1,698 receiving second-class classes.
In the postgraduate degree category, Prof. Okogbule said, “508 bagged postgraduate diplomas, while 874 bagged master’s degrees, respectively.”
Continuing, he said the high point of the convocation would be the awarding of an honorary doctorate of Law to two distinguished sons of the state, Governor Wike, and a visitor to the university.
“Also, Hon. Justice Iche Ndu, the Pro-Chancellor, and Chairman of the Governing Council. These individuals have contributed immensely to the transformation of this university in the last seven years.”
Okogbule further said the convocation would be preceded by a lecture to be delivered by former Vice Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Joseph Ajienka on Thursday, December 8, 2022.
“The topic of the lecture is ‘Nigerian Universities and Leadership Value Proposition: Having Graduates Worthy in Character and Learning.’
Speaking further, the Vice Chancellor said there is no going back on the institution’s policy of ‘no school fees, no examination.’
Prof. Okogbule said while it was a difficult decision to arrive at, the policy was already yielding positive results as students have complied heavily.
According to him, “It is necessary to mention here that the policy of no school fees, no examination has paid off handsomely. We were in a very sad situation where some students who are in level 300 had not paid fees at all, and so did not have matriculation numbers.
“They were writing their names on sheets of paper during examinations. That is clearly non-acceptable to us as a university. It is on the strength of that we insisted that students have to pay their fees,” he said.
He, however, said management had extended the window to enable more students to pay their school fees before the policy was enforced.
“From this (no fees, no exam) exercise, over 3000 who would otherwise not have paid their fees, have done so now.
“Three local government areas eventually came to the rescue of some of their students, particularly final-year students. We have as agreed scheduled special examinations for those who paid their fees later. That examination will be held on Monday, December 12, 2022. So, the policy still stands,” the VC added.
