The administration of Prince Abubakar Audu University, formerly Kogi State University, Ayingba, Kogi State, has said that the institution never, at any time, gave cash gifts of N2,000 and N5,000 to the best graduating students and those who they earned first class during the recently concluded sixth combined call. ceremonies
The university blamed miscreants for reports of such a presentation in circulation, saying that had never been the university’s practice.
The university was reacting to the report in some sections of the media which suggested that such awards would be announced for the best graduating students, accompanied by ridiculous comments suggesting Nigeria’s poor rewarding culture for academic excellence but social life.
But the management of the institution, which has just been renamed Prince Abubakar Audu University, has described the report as disinformation, in a statement signed by its vice-rector, Professor Marietu Tenuche.
The university said it would soon announce its rewards to deserving graduates at the appropriate time.
automatic employment
Mr. Tenuche said the university’s tradition since its inception was to offer automatic opt-out employment to all first-class graduates at the institution, a policy he said has not changed.
The Vice Chancellor’s statement says in part; “For the records, it has been the tradition of the PAAU to offer automatic employment to its top graduates and top students overall with the option to decline.
“The top overall graduating students who earned first class at the sixth convocation ceremony held on the weekend of January 29, 2022, therefore, could not have been treated less.
“The PAAU at no time, and did not do so after the 6th convocation, offered such a reward to its best graduating students and in general that they achieved the first class after arduous and rigorous efforts to distinguish themselves”.
personal donations
The university said the money given to students “was personal donations from individual faculty and departments to appreciate academic excellence.”
He explained that while the institution has not yet ruled on student rewards, the tradition was that individual donations to the best graduating students were paid into the university’s awards account, while the university then issued checks. to deserving recipients.
The VC added; “Rewarding students who are being misunderstood is only symbolic and an acknowledgment by individual teachers as a way of appreciating their best students. This is a development considered a very rare privilege by teachers and some people to be commended. Unfortunately, it has been misunderstood as the reward that comes from college.
“It may be of interest to those behind the misleading information to note that while the university has not yet ruled on the reward for top graduate and first-class students, we are not ignoring the fact that some individual professors in some faculties and departments of the students who excelled, with particular reference to the college of agriculture, made personal efforts to appreciate their best graduate students.
“This should not be misconstrued as a reward from the university administration, as a corporate entity.”
New name
At the time of its establishment in 1999, the institution was known as Kogi State University, but was changed to Prince Abubakar Audu University in 2002 and then again to Kogi State University in 2003.
In the last week of January 2022, Nuhu Ahmed, registrar and secretary of the university’s governing council, announced that Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello had renamed the institution Prince Abubakar Audu, “in honor of the founding father and the first democratically elected governor of the state.”
This new step reportedly followed the passage of a bill “to repeal and re-enact the law to establish Prince Abubakar Audu University, Anyigba” by the Kogi State House of Assembly and approved by the governor. .