From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University, Lokoja, Professor Gbenga Solomon Ibileye has demanded for the contributions of the institution’s Alumni Association towards infrastructural development and academic excellence of their Alma mater.
Professor Ibileye made the call while speaking at the Alumni Engagement Programme organized by the Institute of Governance and Development Studies of the University at its Felele Campus in Lokoja at the weekend.
He said that the forum is aimed at brainstorming on how best the Alumni could give back to their Alma mater in ensuring infrastructural development and academic excellence as well as promotion of good image of which the University is known for.
He also called on the Alumni Association to live up to expectation in the promotion of the good image of their Alma mater wherever they found themselves in course of their human endeavors.
The Vice-Chancellor described Dr.Steve Olusegun Ogidan, Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer, Successory Nigeria Limited who was invited as Keynote Speaker at the Forum, as a great expert to deliver on the way forward for the Alumni to live up to its task towards uplifting its Alma mater.
Dr. Ogidan in his Presentation titled; Alumni Participation in University Development:
“From Goodwill to Architecture — Building the Alumni Covenant” commended the Vice-Chancellor for deeming it feat to convene a roundtable discussions of this quality of rigour and participants describing the effort as a signal of institutional promise.
“Prof. Segun Joshua, Director of IGDS: the Institute’s role as convener of this conversation is, I believe, a precursor to a much larger institutional legacy. I commend your foresight and your resolve.
“The institution has the ambition. The alumni have the leverage. The FUL/NILDS cohort has the access. The only variable remaining is the will to translate today’s conversation into a sustained, structured, accountable programme of action.
“I am confident — not by sentiment, but by evidence — that this University will, in the decade ahead, build an alumni engagement architecture that becomes a reference point for new universities across Nigeria and Africa. The ingredients are here. The people are in this room. What is required now is the architecture, the accountability, and the commitment to begin.
“The only variable remaining is the will to translate today’s conversation into a sustained, structured, accountable programme of action.”
“May our deliberations today translate — in the months and years ahead — into measurable, accountable and visible progress for this great University and for the generations of students who will walk through its gates long after all of us have moved on”
