BY JIMITOTA ONOYUME

78 graduands of the University of Port Harcourt are to  be conferred with first class degrees at this year’s convocation ceremony of the institition.

Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Ndowa Lale disclosed this yesterday at a media parley in the university ahead of the convocation slated for Saturday next week.

He said the overall best graduating student of the school Mr Uzoma Chinomso of the department of Plant Science and Biotechnology in the faculty of Science had a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.82, adding that he would plant the Convocation Tree at the University Park on Tuesday.

The Vice Chancellor, Professor Lale said he would have a dinner with all the first class graduates and graduates with distinction from the College of Health Sciences and the Faculty of Pharmaceutical sciences

Continuing, he said a total of 5,473 would graduate from various programs of the university,adding that he would continue to drive the vision of a university where research results should solve practical problems and create wealth.

Professor Lale further called on government to regulate the operations of students union governments in Universities for them to be better focussed, stressing that some leaders of the unions misconstrued their roles, functions and powers.

“Students Union Governments which now operates at a parallel point with the statutory university administration. Pray, how did we degenerate to this sorry pass in which students assume the status of gangsters and terrorists on the campuses of Nigerian universities? Government must do something very urgently to sanitise the operational structures of students unions before they overpower the statutory administrations of universities “, he said.

The Vice Chancellor said the university had commenced Direct Entry mode of admission,  adding that the Faculty of Law was set to take off.

He said the university also commuted the expulsion of some students to rustication for one academic session.