UNILAG Graduates 17,464, Confers Honorary Degrees

By Michael Alabi, Isaac Onyebuchi, Joy Mmerenu, Babatunde Okunlola

The University of Lagos today began awarding bachelor and postgraduate degrees to a total of 17,464 students who graduated in the 2021/2022 academic session at the University’s 54th convocation ceremony.

Vice Chancellor, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, during the pre-convocation press briefing on Wednesday, January 10, 2024, disclosed that 10,578 will receive first degrees while 6886 students will receive postgraduate degrees. 

Breaking down the figures, she said: “Of those with first degrees, 340 are first class with 97 coming from Management sciences, followed by Science with 57 and Engineering 47. From the Faculties of Pharmacy, Basic Medical Sciences and Clinical Sciences, there were 39 distinctions, 24 of which were from the Faculty of Pharmacy.

“3374 graduated with Second class upper, 4547 graduated with Second class lower and 1,832 with 3rd class. 188 graduated with a pass, and 250 had unclassified degrees from Pharmacy, Basic and Clinical Sciences.

“Of the 6886 postgraduate degrees, we have 465 graduating with a postgraduate diploma, 6266 are graduating with a Masters of which 377 have distinctions. This year, 155 graduates will be awarded the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in various disciplines.”

Ogunsola highlighted that David Akanmu from the Faculty of Engineering emerged as the overall best graduating student and also the best-graduating student in Sciences with a perfect cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 5.00, while Ibrahim Quadri, from the Faculty of Management Sciences emerged as the best-graduating student in Humanities with a CGPA of 4.94.                                                                                               

As for postgraduate degrees, Aminat Ige had the best PhD thesis in Science and the overall best, which is also with a PhD in Mathematics. Issa Adedokun graduated with the best Ph.D. thesis in Humanities, focusing on private and property law.

The vice chancellor also announced that the University will confer honorary doctoral degrees on three distinguished professors for their contributions to scholarship and societal development.

“This year, we are awarding these degrees to three such persons. Two men and a woman. The first person in Professor Toyin Falola OON, the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair at the University of Texas at Austin, who is a globally acclaimed influential humanities scholar whose wide-ranging scholarship has placed him at the zenith of the global academy.

“We also have Professor Phyllis Kanki, doctor of Veterinary Medicine and professor of Immunology at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Through her work in West Africa, she was the first person to isolate HIV2, which causes a milder form of AIDS that was more commonly found in West Africa. She has contributed significantly to medical education, HIV research, HIV data and to building research capacity across many universities in Nigeria and in Africa. In fact, the story of the Nigerian HIV response cannot be written without mentioning her contributions.

“The last person is no other person but Professor Attahiru Muhammadu Jega, OFR. A professor of political science at Bayero University, Kano. A sound intellectual, an astute administrator with a strong sense of ethics who revolutionized Nigeria’s electoral process and conducted an internationally acclaimed free and fair election and left that position with his head high.”