Centre Awards N18 million Research Grant to 120 Students

Oluchi Chibuzor

As part of their corporate social responsibility effort to boost entrepreneurship and encourage research development within the Nigerian tertiary institution ecosystem, the Grooming Centre, Ejigbo Lagos, has awarded 120 students the sum of N18 million.

The University award is to ensure that each recipient completes their undergraduate and postgraduate project with national impact and for the development of home grown businesses.

However, this year’s award is the fourth since the inception of the Grooming Centre University grant awards in 2019.

Speaking at the award ceremony, Chief Executive Officer, Grooming center, Godwin Nwabunka, said all the recipients are  real students who are pursuing real courses they want to implement in their project.

He noted that education is at the heart of what they do to start in their  new broadened vision and mandate as they are expanding activities to social impact on education.

According to him, “We tend to expand it so that undergraduate and postgraduates who have financial constraints; we will remove those constraints so that they can focus on what they do. Like I said, beyond areas of financial inclusion we are now looking at a broader area like the planet, people, profit and all these activities that happen at the bottom of the pyramid.

“So the whole broad areas like addressing planet issues, people, sustainability and profit. All these activities we hope that students will get interested in those areas and beyond just passing the exams.”

Continuing he added, “We want them to follow their ideas and blow them up to businesses, projects that address basic problems both at the bottom of the pyramid and society in general. This is a great initiative of ours that aligns with everything we are doing.We are going to scale it up progressively hopefully in the years to come.

“We are asking them beyond passing your exam you should look at calling up your ideas through the project. Beyond this step we have another mechanism to help them blow up the project through mentoring, endowment trust, venture capital outlet and the bank providing a broader range of products.”

For the guest speaker, a Development Economics and Data Analytics with Lagos Business School, Professor Bongo Adi, explained that the country must begin to take research development very seriously.

“Everybody knows that research is the kernel of development and modernisation of what you called civilization. So whatever you can say about industrialisation or the current fourth industrial revolution; all the transitions that we have had in terms of the ways, method and technology of production were inspired by painstaking research that people undertook in their quiet moment in their laboratories, research institutions.”

On his part, the head of special project, Grooming Centre, Mr. Chikezie Egbulefu, urged the students to see this as an opportunity to contribute to national development.

“We decided to give 18 million naira to 60 undergraduates  and 60 postgraduates students, to provide them with the needed funds to undertake their research work.” 

For Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta postgraduate students, Kwaghfan Saaondo, whose thesis is on response of West Africa Dwarf goats to graded levels of cassava leaf meal, said the grant would enable him, “perform laboratory analysis on growth performance of cassava leaf on West Africa dwarf goats.”