Former Nigerian president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, 82, has received a doctorate in Christian Theology.
Obasanjo, who led a team of Common wealth election observers to Uganda for the 18 February 2016 general presidential elections, was on Saturday among 14, 771 graduates who received honours at the 7th convocation of National Open University of Nigeria(NOUN), Prof. Abdalla Adamu, NOUN’s Vice-Chancellor said, the News Agency of Nigeria reported.
Earlier speaking at a press conference, the Vanguard Newspaper – Nigeria quoted Prof. Adamu as saying the greatest pride of this year’s graduation was of Obasanjo becoming NOUN’s first PhD student.
According to the Newspaper, Adamu noted that in spite of being a former president, Obasanjo conducted himself properly and deservedly bagged Doctor of Philosophy in Christian Theology.
“One of the graduands is the first PhD graduate the institution will produce; a university must graduate students at academic Masters Level before graduating PhD. Only one candidate has been able to do that and that is Obasanjo; the Senate has found him worthy of the award and approved the conferment of PhD on him,”
“There are lessons to be learnt from Obasanjo’s feat – one is never too old to learn; Obasanjo was about 80 years when he started the programme and has finished it at 82,” he said.
“Again, one is never too powerful to learn; he was the president twice and yet subjected himself to learning; learning is a humbling process.
“We will consider him for the post of a facilitator or supervisor; maybe for our Abeokuta Study Centre; we will suggest it to him.’’
Meanwhile, when Premium Times asked Mr. Obasanjo on Saturday morning whether he would now prefer to be called “Dr. Obasanjo” in a fitting tribute to his latest academic achievement, the former leader said “No”.
He told the news outlet he would prefer that people continue to address him as “Chief Obasanjo” a title he adopted after dropping the prefix “General” when he became Nigeria’s democratically elected president in 1999.
aaron@ugchristiannews.com
