By Simon Ebegbulem
BENIN — THE Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Global Fleet Group and Publisher of the National Mirror Newspaper, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, will be honoured with the first Change Nigeria Award, at the 6th convocation of the Benson Idahosa University, Benin City, scheduled for this weekend.

A total of 247 students will also be awarded first degrees, which the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Profsor Gideon Omuta,  described as historic, since the event is coming a month after the conclusion of the 2009/2010 session examinations, “thereby successfully shaving off four to five months from what it used to be in the past.”

Prof. Omuta, who spoke at the pre-convocation media briefing in Benin City, Edo State, yesterday, explained that Mr. Ibrahim,  who will on Friday, deliver a lecture titled “Entrepreneurship and Innovation as Critical Factors for Sustainable National Development”, was carefully picked by the institution because of his achievements so far in the development of the nation’s economy.

Giving a break down of the graduating students, he said that 38 would be graduating from the Faculty of Arts and Education, 72 from the Faculty of Basic and Applied Sciences, 35 from the Faculty of Law and 102 from the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences.

He disclosed that the university was the realization of the a “divine vision given to our founder, Archbishop Benson Idahosa, as far back as 1977” adding that since the university was granted its licensed in 2002, it had grown from strength to strength as a private Christian university.