Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council at Federal University Lokoja, called on the federal government to increase funding to address the pressing challenges facing the nation’s universities.
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Senator Ndoma-Egba made this appeal during the university’s 8th convocation ceremony held in Lokoja, Kogi State, over the weekend.
He emphasized that universities are more than educational institutions; they are the cornerstone of the nation’s intellectual and innovative future.
The pro chancellor tasked the federal government to consider special provisions that would lead to the reduction of the operating costs of all federal universities in the country.
According to him, the challenges include lack of laboratories, shortage of critical personnel, especially for the programmes, library holdings, utilities, road networks, office and student accommodation.
“The prevailing global and national economic crisis has led to dwindling funding to universities the world over,” he said.
He told the graduands to go out and impact the society positively, since the university has equipped them with academic knowledge and built a foundation of integrity, character and moral excellence during the course of their sojourn in the school.
Earlier, the vice chancellor of the University of Lokoja, Professor Olayemi Akinwumi, stated that 1,863 students were conferred with first degrees out of a total of 2,196 graduating students across diverse fields of study at the 8th convocation ceremony.
According to him, the Faculty of Science with 783 graduands topped the list, followed by the Faculty of Management Sciences with 99 graduating students; while PhD and master degrees have 7 and 190 graduands respectively.
He added that among the graduands, 41 students got first class; 461 second class upper; 974 second class, 384 third class and three students fell under pass.
He said the National Universities Commission (NUC) has accredited all programmes being run in the institution.
“Out of the 42 programmes presented, 34 received full accreditation, while eight were granted interim accreditation,” he said.