Adamawa Rewards First Class Graduates with Scholarship, Employment

By Daji Sani

The Adamawa State Government has awarded automatic employment and scholarship to five first class graduates of the state university to proceed for further studies abroad.

The state governor, Alhaji Ahmadu Fintiri announced the awards at the university convocation held at the main campus in Mubi yesterday.

At the convocation, Fintiri said the graduates measured up and were the best graduating students hence government needed to reward hard work in order to encourage performance and excellence.

He said, the university should encourage research and excellence to solve challenges around the country.

He said the university should prove itself worthy by providing solutions “to challenges facing the people, beginning with electricity, water and other service problems within the campus.

“It is incumbent on the university community, with its array of professors, to help itself. As we depart from here after this convocation today, I leave you with the challenge of solving basically the service problems within your campus.

“My findings reveal that the university is grappling with service problems such as water, electricity and waste disposal.

“Instead of spending millions on diesel to power generators, for instance, why can’t the university devote itself to research in alternative and cheap energy for the campus?

“With all the Physics and other related researchers, why must the university be part of the diesel guzzling community? We need to demonstrate excellence in the campus in order to export it into the society.”

He said with the recent promotion exercise in the university, he would be happier if such promotions were benchmarked on the basis of research and innovations or inventions linked to markets, industries and patents.”

Also at the convocation, the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof Kaletapwa Farauta had complained while delivering her address during the 5th-13th combined convocation that the university depended almost wholly on power generators as electricity supply to Mubi remained epileptic.

The VC also lamented that the university was holding its convocation after 12 years of the last one in 2009 while apologising to graduates of the previous academic sessions for the delay.

After the first convocation in 2006 and the second in 2009, the university was weighed down with crises, including Boko Haram occupation of the main campus in 2014, disharmony between staff unions and management afterwards and COVOD-19 which foreclosed a move for convocation in 2020.

The university graduated over 11,000 students at the convocation yesterday, including 92 who graduated with first-class degrees

A highlight of the convocation was the award of an honorary doctorate degree to former governor of the State, Boni Haruna, during whose tenure the university was established in 2002.

Chancellor of the university, Muhammed Ahmed who is the Emir of Pindiga in Gombe State, was also conferred with an honorary doctorate degree.