Recently updated on October 24th, 2022 at 03:43 pm
For the very first time in 69 years, Ozibo Ekele has emerged the first graduate with a First Class honours degree in History at the University of Ibadan.
The university’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Idowu Olayinka, said Ozibo Ekele of the Department of History, was one of the 186 students who earned First Class degrees at the 2015/2016 convocation ceremonies in Ibadan.
Professor Olayinka said 5,629 students graduated in various academic programmes from 12 faculties, including the Distance Learning Centre at the convocation. According to him, 186 passed with first class honours, 1,538 finished with Second Class Upper, while 3,133 finished with Second Class Lower. Similarly, 434 students finished with Third Class, while 81 others graduated with Pass degrees.
The VC enjoined the graduates to be good ambassadors of the university, saying they should impact positively on their world.
According to him, the breakdown of the graduating list showed that 3.5 percent and 28.6 percent finished with First Class and Second Class (Upper) honours, respectively.
In his words:
“I am aware that there has been strident public criticism of the large number of first class graduates from our universities.
We are exceedingly proud of all Ibadan graduates.
We see this phenomenon from the strategic point of view of input-process-output.
The University of Ibadan has arguably the most competitive mechanism for undergraduate admissions in the country.
This has been attested to consistently by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, in which Ibadan is the only university in the country ranked among the topmost 1,000 universities in the world.’’
He was full of praises for Ekele for breaking the record as the Department had never produced a first class student since inception.
Professor Olayinka stated:
