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FORMER PRESIDENT OLUSEGUN OBASANJO BAGS MASTER’S IN THEOLOGY FROM NOUN

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Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on Saturday in Abuja bagged a
Master’s Degree in Theology at the fifth convocation of the National Open
University of Nigeria (NOUN). The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof.
Vincent Tenebe, said in his address at the ceremony that Obasanjo was among
other notable Nigerians in the list of the 10,653 graduands in which 15 of them
made first class honours.
Tenebe listed other outstanding graduands as the Emir of Hadejia, Jigawa
State, Alhaji Adamu Abubakar and the traditional ruler of Awgu, Enugu State,
Igwe Felix Okechukwu. Others were over 70 years Rear Admiral Orisha, (Rtd), who
bagged fist class in Mathematics and a 78-year-old, Chief Femi Balogun, who
bagged LL.B from the School of Law. The vice-chancellor also listed a blind
student, Mr Obinna Bede, who bagged a Bachelor of Arts (English), degree and
Udo Effiong, who had the highest cumulative point in first class grade of 4.71.

“It is interesting to note that Obasanjo will be graduating with a Master’s
Degree (MA-Christian Theology) having met the requirements for the award during
this convocation.”
“Having been given the admission to study MA/PhD in Christian Theology,
Obasanjo will continue with his Ph.D fully.”
“This is very unique considering his age and commitments; he also made a
very good cumulative grade point,’’ the VC said.”
Tenebe said that NOUN had achieved its primary mandate of having study
centres in all the state capitals across the country. According to him, the
institution will commence the last aspect of its mandate, which is to establish
study centres in all the 774 local governments in the next 15 years. He said
that the total number of study centre across the country stood at 72 alongside
four new research centres. Tenebe appealed to relevant authorities to admit
graduates of NOUN into law school as was done in other countries.
“We will not relent in our appeal to the Council for Legal Education to
give NOUN Law graduates the opportunity to attend the Law School and be called
to the Bar.”
“If other countries such as UK, India, South Africa, Tanzania, among others
allow their Open Universities’ Law graduates to attend Law School and are
called to the Bar, Nigeria has no justifiable reasons to hold her Open
University graduates down.”
“We must move forward in all these areas as a progressive country,’’ he
said.
In his address, NOUN’s Chancellor, Igwe Lawrence Agubuzu, said that there
were 59 open universities in the World, adding that their graduates were
treated differently from graduates of conventional universities. Agubuzu called
on the National Youth Service Corps and the Nigerian Law School to allow NOUN
graduates to participate in their progammes.
NAN reports that Chief Obasanjo received the award by proxy as he was said
to be unavoidably absent.
NOUN’s 2016 convocation was held for the first time at University Village,
Jabi, which was allocated to the institution in 1983.
Source: NAN
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