Two leading Nigerian industrialists, Kamoru Ibitoye Yusuf and Innocent Chukwuma, will be awarded with the Honoris Causa degree in Business Management for their contributions to the growth of the manufacturing sector in Nigeria.
Kamoru Ibitoye Yusuf is the founder of KAM Holdings, an industry which specialises in the manufacturing of Iron and Steel products and the Chairman, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Kwara/Kogi Branch.
On the other hand, Innocent Chukwuma, is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing; Nigeria’s first indigenous automobile manufacturing company.
Credible industrialists
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Professor Florence Obi hinted journalists in Calabar, the capital of Cross River State, south-south Nigeria, that the industrialists would be honoured during its 34th convocation ceremony on Saturday March 27, 2021.
Obi said: “We chose these two gentlemen because they are very credible Nigerians with a lot of integrity. They are contributing to national development and both of them have employed and pay-rolled more than Five thousand Nigerians.”
According to her, “When this University gives honourary degrees, we always go for those, who are impacting on society and these two have so impacted on the Nigerian society with their innovations in manufacturing, employing people from across Nigeria and the globe.”
“They are rendering very critical service to the Nigerian nation and that is why we choose them. They have despite challenges made their marks in the nation’s economic growth and we celebrate our own as an encouragement to young Nigerians seeking to emulate their strides,” the Vice Chancellor stated.
The Vice Chancellor, who described convocation as an academic ritual for every higher institution, also said more than 4,500 students would be convoking on Saturday after fulfilling the required academic years in the university.
She said that the institution would also hold a pre-convocation lecture titled “The National Question and the Challenges of Nationhood in Nigeria’ to be delivered by the Minister of Transport, Chibuike Amaechi amongst other events.
“For this year, we have 22 first class graduands, 1,073 students bag second Class Upper Division, 2,763 Second Class Lower Division, 547 got Third Class, 26 had Pass. We also have 127, who will be awarded Ordinary Diplomas, while at the Post Graduate level, the university is graduating 154 in the Post Graduate Diplomas, 187 will be awarded Masters Degree and 56 will receive PHDs,” Obi stated.
She further explained that there would be a groundbreaking ceremony for the building of the university’s Open and Distance Learning block, which would be tagged “KAM-Wire ODL Building” as a prelude to the convocation proper.
Lateefah Ibrahim
