…102 With Distinctions, Upper Credits
By Wole Adedeji, Ilorin
A total of 8,350 students of the Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin graduated on Thursday at the 29th convocation ceremony of the institution.
Of the figure, 3,000 obtained the Higher National Diploma, HND, while 5,350 were National Diploma, ND, graduates. 102 of them were in the distinction and upper credit category, according to the Rector, Engr. Dr. Abdul Jimoh Mohammed, in his convocation address.
He had earlier, at a press briefing said that the institution had persistently been bedeviled with the strongest menace of land encroachers on the polytechnic land who also had the effrontery to drag the school to court, even when compensations had been fully paid to land owners by government since November, 1974.
The encroachment activities in the institution, according to the Rector, had made the school porous, giving unbridled access to and from the permanent campus by neighbouring villages and communities.
He lamented that the situation had constituted worrisome sight of unathorised structures on both sides of the road leading to the institution, as well as their sorroundings, posing possible challenges to the security of the school.
The Rector disclosed that to forestal this possible breach of security occassioned by the porosity, the polytechnic had spent huge amount of money in partnering with security agencies, such as the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Police Force, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, the Vigilante Groups to secure the institution.
Engr. Mohammed said thst aside this, as expected in any human endeavour, they are also facing other challenges, such as funding, accreditation of programmes, aging structures, which call for government’s urgent attention.
The Rector, however, praised the current government in the state, who unlike in the past, had been up and doing to bail the polytechnic out of its huge challenges.
He called on the government to kindly do more for the school, which is rated as one of the technology compliant polytechnics and most sought-after, in the country in order to make it continue to remain at the forefront.
He listed his administration’s achievements since he came into office office in 2019, in addition to the completion of eleven set physical projects that he reported last convocation, to include the installation of a 33kva power project, courtesy of the supports of the governor and visitor to the school.
The Rector also disclosed that the current appraisal of his achievements included renovation of the ICT complex, construction of drainages, landscapping/construction of walkways, centralised online research assessment
and submission system, renovation of old library, solar power projects, among others.
Speaking at the occasion, the Kwara State Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Dr. Mary Ronke Arinde, who represented Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq at the event, commmended the polytechnic for doing the state proud in all sphere of academic teaching and learning, pointing out that products of the institution are found in large number across the country doing extraordinarily well.
