By Dayo Adesulu & Victor Agi

Covenant University, Ota, on Saturday matriculated a total of 2022 students into her undergraduate and postgraduate programmes for the 2014/2015 academic session.

This figure which represented a total of 1,868 undergraduate and 154 post-graduate students, saw the students swear the oath of matriculation at the event witnessed by parents, friends and well wishers.

In his address, the Chancellor, Dr David Oyedepo, who charged the students on leadership, stated his belief that everything rises and falls on leadership; “I do believe that the greatest need of the 21st Century is that of Leadership; there is a dearth of leadership in our nation today.

“Whereas leadership is not an endowment, commitment to the future is what makes a leader. Just as there are no born failures, there are no born leaders, but rather a distinction by an evolution of values. It is therefore an art that must be consciously and intelligibly developed,” continued the Chancellor.”

Further in his speech, he noted that: “There are no short cuts to any place worth going,  This explains the doggedness and commitment of Covenant University to birth this needed change. We believe that until something changes within us nothing changes around us.  Until the mind is renewed, life cannot be transformed.”

Also in his speech, the Vice Chancellor, Prof Charles Ayo, charged the matriculants to leave up to the expectations of the mission of the institution to raise a new generation of leaders. His words: “Nigeria is in dire need of Leaders across the various sectors of the economy, coupled with the security challenges as well as the challenge of access to and quality of education. The good news is that CU is the solution to these issues but you have a role to play.”

He also stressed that, In Covenant University, “we train people to be faithful to their work, respect mutual obligations, be kind to one another, and place the welfare of others above personal gains. Above all, we teach you to do things with the fear of God,” and charged the matriculants to be good ambassadors of the school and country at large.