The Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT, has offered automatic employments to the university’s best three graduating students of the 2021/2022 academic session.
This is as the Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) disclosed that ESUT graduates have remained proud and veritable workforce for the oil industry, representing their alma mater with dignity.
The benefiting best three students included the overall best graduate from across all the departments and faculties, Ms. Ikeonyia Barbara Ijeoma from the department of Industrial Physics in Applied Natural Sciences faculty; Mr. Muoananu Ifenna Chinedu from the Computer Engineering department in the faculty of Engineering is second, while the third best-graduating student was Mr. Arum Tobechukwu Franklin from the Biology Education department in the Faculty of Education.
Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof Aloysius-Michaels Okolie made the offers during the 19th convocation ceremony of the university at its main campus in Agbani, where the top graduates also received deserved awards and honours, during the weekend.
A total of eleven thousand three hundred and seventy-seven (11,377) graduates of the university in the 2021/2022 academic session also received their certificates that included 9,085 with First Degrees; 465 for Post Graduate Diplomas; 1,177 with Masters’ Degrees and 650 graduates who bagged their Doctors of Philosophy Degrees, Ph. D
Five eminent personalities were also awarded with Honorary Awards (Honoris Causa), including the Country Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria, and Managing Director of the Shell Petroleum Development Company Of Nigeria Limited, Mr. Osagie Okunbor who was awarded with a Doctor of Business Administration (Honoris Causa).
In his remarks shortly after the award, Okunbor said that even though the oil and gas industry does not have a dominant presence in Enugu state, the Shell companies in Nigeria have a long history of interaction with the people of Enugu State and with the breathtaking topography of ESUT.
“Over the years, several of your students have been and are still on the Shell university scholarship which has been helping our dear country grow its human capacity. Shell Companies in Nigeria have a long history of supporting education through scholarships and other initiatives. Since the 1950s, the Shell scholarship schemes have supported several thousands of students, many of whom have gone on to become Nigeria’s business, political and social leaders.
“Currently, we have over 3,500 university grants for Nigerian students. The Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) also built, here at this great Enugu State University of Technology, this same campus, a state-of-the-art ICT Centre. That Centre is one of six that we donated over recent years to major universities across Nigeria’s geopolitical zones.
