7th January, 2024
By Richard Elesho
The Kogi Polytechnic, Lokoja has held its 4th combined convocation, during which it conferred a fellowship on Governor Yahaya Bello, for his achievement in infrastructure and human capital development across the state.
The governor was honoured alongside four other eminent personalities on Saturday.
The other recepients are Alhaji Isa Ozi Salami, OFR; Barrister Umoru Jimoh, Chairman of IHS (Nigeria) Limited; Professor Idris Bugaje, Executive Secretary of National Board for Technical Education, NBTE; and Barrister Moses Okezie-Okafor, Kogi State Director General Research and Development.
Bello lauded the Rector of Kogi polytechnic, Dr Salisu Ogbo Usman, for transforming it.
He added that Ogbo’s success is a reflection of his own administration’s unbending desire to turn the education sector around.
The governor said his administration have continued to invest in the education sector through several programmes and initiatives, thereby improving infrastructures and quality of education across all higher institutions.
“My achievements can be attested where the Kogi State Polytechnic was before my assumption of office where, it is now and what we have repositioned it for the future”.
“We have taken time to look into the education Sector of our people. We made education a top priority in our thematic agenda”.
“We not only improved on the infrastructure and learning in our tertiary institutions, but also expanded our educational institution so that our children will not travel far to seek for knowledge within four years of our second term administration,” Gov. Bello said.
Earlier in his remarks, the Rector, Dr. Salisu Usman Ogbo informed the public that 12, 080 students graduated at the Institution’s historic 4th Combined Convocation which covers ten years academic calendar from 2013/2014 up to 2022/2023 academic sessions.
Breaking down the number, he noted that 7,653 will be graduating with a National Diploma (ND) in various programmes while four thousand, four hundred and twenty-seven students graduated with Higher National Diploma (HND) in various programmes.
He expressed his gratitude to God and the Governor for enabling the humble impact his leadership in the polytechnic have made within the period.
The Rector who gave highlights of some of the efforts made to reposition Kogi Polytechnic noted that the condition of the polythecnic before he emerged as the Rector was well known hence their journey thus far under the 3-Rs mantra of Repair, Reform and Restore has truly yielded great leap, but still a journey in progress.
He said in areas of academic matters and quality assurance, Kogibpolytechnic Introduced new Statement of Results Format and Fortified Original Certificate, Introduction E-Examination/Results Computation/E-Payment, Strengthening Regulation against indiscriminate Production and Sales of Textbooks on the Campus, Introduction of the Academic Board Central Results Verification Committee, Production of Maiden Annual Report for the Polytechnic, 100% accreditation of 30 Programmes and several others.
Chairman Governing Council of the institution, Prof. Yakubu Isa said Kogi Polytechnic will continue to prioritize academic and personal development of students.