Saraki, Duke, Ita-Giwa bag Doctorate Degrees as Unical graduates 7, 222 students

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By; Vitalis Ugoh, Calabar
President of the Senate, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, former Governor of Cross River, Mr. Donald Duke and Florence Ita Giwa have bagged the prestigious honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Calabar (Unical).
This was announced in Calabar by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Zana Akpagu at the 29th pre-convocation briefing with the media in his office.
He said that this years celebration is the year for the “malabites” as the convocation lecture will be delivered by Professor Yakubu.
Zana said that the Pro-chancellor of the University, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu is expected to have a stakeholders meeting with students and staff of the university to discuss issues of common interest.
He said the climax of the event which is slated for March 12, 2016 will be the award of Degrees, Diplomas, Masters as well as Doctorate Degrees to deserving students who had excelled over the years.
According to him, 7,222 students will graduate. Out of this figure, 4,868 are with first degrees, 952 higher degrees while 1,042 will be awarded diplomas.
This year, he said, is very significant because twelve students bagged 1st class in the history of convocation of the university. Importantly, he said, 2,980 students bagged second class lower, 760 with second class upper while 90 had ordinary pass.
The 1st degree cuts across all departments in the university, he added.
He accepted that the institution had had bad press in recent times, adding that “we have expelled or suspended not less than 20 persons involved in one unwholsome issue or the other.
Zana said that the council had recommended the immediate sack of two lecturers accused of plagarism. One of them is a Professor.
The unviversity authority, he added, has embarked on a number of projects to improve the condition of students and in a very near future the propjects would be completed and commissioned.
He said “we are in a process of awarding more contracts. We want to provide more hostels, water, library ICT facilities, e-learning within the campus.”
He said his team is planning to re-establish the Malabo FM/TV before the end of its tenure while plans are under way to establish a farm, as well as building of an indoor sports facility.
Zana declared “we want our university to be the first. We want to improve from our current rating of No. 9 in Nigeria and 43 in Africa as it were before the end of our tenure.”

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