77 bag first class as 3, 724 graduate at Abia varsity

Abia State University Uturu (ABSU) has graduated 3724 students at its 29th convocation ceremony, with 77 bagging first class. Miss Oluomachi Agbazuere, from the Faculty of Law, emerged overall best graduating student, with 4.75 Cumulative Grade Point Aggregate (CGPA).

At the ceremony, the Vice Chancellor, Prof Maxwell Ogbulu, announced automatic employment for Miss Agbazuere who also won her father’s (Professor Anthony Agbazuere) best graduating student prize of N500, 000.

He commended the graduands for their academic excellence, charging them to be worthy ambassadors of the school.

The ceremony featured conferment of Professor Emeritus on its former vice chancellor, Prof Ogwo. E. Ogwo and award of doctorate degrees on Rivers State governor Dr. Ezenwo Wike, Dr. Mike Ozekhome, Reginald Stanley, Folorunsho Alakija and Aigboji Aig-Imoukhuade for their service to humanity.

Addressing a pre-convocation press conference, the VC said the university has fully implemented the ‘No Work no Pay’ policy, but has forgiven workers who embarked on strike in the past.

He said that the university generates 85 per cent of its revenue is internally, while the remaining 15 per cent come from state government’s subvention, adding that during the strike and COVID-19 pandemic, its internally generated revenue, which reduced drastically, affected prompt payment of workers’ salaries.

“We could not pay salaries promptly when our main revenue sources were in comatose. But we have forgiven workers who went on strike over non-payment of salaries during those period and we have now adopted the ‘no work, no pay’ policy, and thank the state governor for extending subventions to us, including special grants that assisted us in run the institution,” Ogbulu said.