By Ogunlana Klistivivi
Crowning weeks and days of anticipation and preparations, the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, officially concluded its Forty-Ninth (49th) Convocation Ceremony, graduating a total of six thousand, five hundred and sixty-two (6,562) students. The event, which took place from Thursday, 11 December, to Saturday, 13 December 2025, saw the conferment of bachelor's degrees, diplomas, and postgraduate degrees to several graduates.
The graduates
include five thousand, two hundred and fifty-three (5,253) students for
classified bachelor's degrees, two hundred and ninety-six (296) students for
unclassified bachelor's degrees, fifty-four (54) students for Undergraduate
Diplomas, nine hundred and fifty-nine (959) students for Postgraduate degrees,
including one hundred and ninety-one (191) Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees.
If you were
unable to follow the event, do not worry; OAUPeeps brings you eight things you might have missed from the convocation ceremony:
1. Shock or surprise? Only two hundred and eighteen (218)
First Class Honours
That is left for you to decide. Of the total
of five thousand, six hundred and three (5,603) undergraduates, only two
hundred and eighteen (218) made First Class. The rest of the story is that of
the remaining five thousand, three hundred and eighty-five (5,385) graduands:
two thousand, one hundred and thirty-two (2,132) earned Upper Second Class
Honours (2.1), and two thousand, two hundred and forty-four (2,244) earned
Lower Second Class Honours (2.2).
2. OAU launches AI-Powered Smartphone
Have you heard of a Nigeria-built AI phone?
Look no further. During the ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor announced that the institution had launched its own AI-powered smartphone, the Oak.io X55, along with an AI-powered smartwatch, the Fit Band X1. Both of
which were officially unveiled at the university’s Symposium on AI and Robotics in Clinical Practice in September 2025.
Source: Techeconomy
3. ₦1
Million for BGS, ₦10 Million for the Department
In a country where academic excellence begs to be rewarded (remember UNIBEN’s BGS from Nursing, Oluwatoyin, who was awarded thirty thousand Naira (₦30,000) as cash prize), things seem to be taking a new turn here in OAU. Amuke Sunday, the overall best graduating student in the Faculty of Technology, received a personal cash prize of one million Naira (₦1,000,000) from the MCOM Cables and Wires Limited Annual Award. Even his department, Computer Science and Engineering, was not left out, as it was awarded a separate ten million Naira (₦10,000,000) annual grant.
Note: BGS for the Faculty of Law was not explicitly named nor included in the order of proceedings made available for the ceremony; also, special mention to Adisa Aishat Olayinka for receiving the Chief (Mrs) Ajibola Adedewe Memorial Prize for the Best Final Year Graduating Female Student in the University with a CGPA of 4.87.4.
4. Faculty of Agriculture and
Big Numbers
Every election season, the Faculty of Agriculture prides
itself as the ‘KKK’ of the OAU
campus with the highest voting population. Yes, while the convocation ceremony was not an election, Agric did not let Tech
steal the whole shine. While Tech
dominated the cash prizes, Agric’s
Omisakin Oyinkansola Roseline instead clinched the Alhaji Kabir Usman prize for Best Overall Graduating Student with
the highest number of prizes, showing again that when it comes to
this numbers thing, no be by "cho-cho-cho"
5. OAU’s Newest Degree: Get Ready to Study "Leadership"
If you have always wanted to be a leader, you may soon have
the opportunity to study ‘Leadership’ on campus at OAU. At least that was the condition
the Senate President, Chief Godswill
Akpabio, represented by Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, gave the school
management if the Senate is to build a state-of-the-art Leadership Centre in the institution. Will that happen? Only
time will tell.
6. OAU Pays ₦200M/Month
for Electricity, Collects Only ₦50M
If there is one thing
campus is well known for, it is its constant power supply. But do you know the
cost of it? The VC during the ceremony presented a shocking statistic: OAU
earns only fifty million Naira (₦50,000,000) as Internally Generated Revenue
(IGR) from campus electricity usage, yet it pays a whopping two hundred million
Naira (₦200,000,000) as electricity bills. In response, the VC passionately called on the Federal Government to urgently complete the abandoned 8.03MW power project, which has been stalled since 2018, as well as the infamous ‘Titanic’ New Senate Building.
7. Mr Project ‘Nyesom Wike’ and the Ekiti Governor to build New Structures on Campus
Widely applauded for his infrastructural giant strides, the
Minister of the FCT has pledged a new building to the Faculty of Law, as
reported by the University’s Acting Pro-Chancellor. The Pro-Chancellor also
noted that the Governor of Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji, also pledged to build
a 1,500-capacity lecture hall for the university.
Who knows, in the near future, you might just be walking around the Faculty of
Law to see, “This Building was Built and Commissioned by Mr Project.”
8. PhD Graduates to take Gowns Home
In one of the random moments
of the ceremony, Senator Jimoh Ibrahim gifted all PhD graduates their gowns
permanently, promising that the Tenth Senate would cover the cost of all of
them (ordinarily, each had to pay fifty thousand Naira (₦50,000) to own the
gown permanently, otherwise they would return it). Want to know why he did so,
in his exact words: “It is easier to get a PhD in Cambridge than Ife, because
when you enter Ife, you do not know the year you will graduate.”
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