Nigerian university awards $20,000 prize to best-graduating student

Baze University, a private institution in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, has announced a $20,000 prize for Farid Hammayo, its best graduating student.

Mr Hammayo, 21, graduated with a 3.96 Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) on a 4.0 scale to bag a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Economics.

The Chancellor of the university, Yusuf Baba-Ahmed, announced the prize at the university’s 11th convocation during the weekend.

Mr Baba-Ahmed also announced prizes for the two best-graduating students at the postgraduate school –Susan Obasi (MSc Management) and Adeola Ayoola (M.Eng Civil Engineering). Both students completed their master’s degrees with a perfect 5.0 CGPA.

“For postgraduates, I think the best I can do is to offer them either a full tuition-free PhD opportunity in Baze or a job opportunity in Baze (university),” he said.

The university graduated 749 students, including 30 who graduated with First Class. It also awarded a posthumous honourary degree to the late Wazirin Dutse, Mukhtar Muhammad, an Air Vice Marshal. The late Mr Muhammad was a former Military Governor of old Kaduna State and a member of the Supreme Military Council from 1984-85. He died in October 2017 at the age of 73.

Chancellor speaks

In his speech obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Baba-Ahmed, said the idea of the university, first conceived 28 years ago, was founded 16 years ago in 2011. Since then, he said the university has produced 4,021 students in 10 convocations.

“We currently have a registered student population of about 5,000 in 44 undergraduate and 59 postgraduate programmes across nine faculties on our 12,000 capacity main campus,” he said.

He said the university’s programmes are designed to be both research-intensive and market-responsive, “reflecting our commitment to addressing the evolving needs of local and global communities.”

The Chancellor, however, noted that the operating environment of the university is both fascinating and challenging.

He listed the challenges to include increasing interest rates from 19 to 32 per cent in just a year.

He said electricity tariffs have also risen by 300 per cent “even for those not on Band A and the Naira has depreciated from 750 to 1,710 against the dollar”.

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“In addition, we face industry inequalities: while genuine long-term investors like Baze commit lifetime resources and borrow heavily to build campuses, others are permitted to rent buildings and operate as universities with only a fraction of our annual interest costs. Such disparities are unfair to stakeholders, investors, and the nation,” he said.