MSSN UI Honours 400 First-Class Students at Grand Award Ceremony

• The Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria, University of Ibadan (MSSNUI), honoured 400 of its members who are on the first-class grade
• The Muslim group honoured the student scholars during its 2025 Grand Award of Academic Excellence
• The event, which took place at the Prof Musa Oladipupo Abdu Civic Centre, University of Ibadan Central Mosque premises, was graced by the Olowu of Owu Kingdom, Oba Professor Saka Matemilola, Otileta VII, who served as the keynote speaker at the event

The University of Ibadan Branch of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria has taken a giant step in encouraging hard work by honouring 370 of its members who bagged first class after completing the 2023/2024 academic session in the university.

At the ceremony, over 280 students who completed the 2023/2024 academic session with a first-class cumulative grade point average (CGPA), alongside more than 70 graduates from the same session, were recognised and awarded.

Cash prize for the best graduating students

As a way to motivate the students, an anonymous donor from the University of Ibadan Muslim Brotherhood (a group of Muslim graduates of UI) donated one million Naira to the best 10 graduating students.

These students are Bello Abdulrasheed with 3.9/4.0 CGPA (Arts), Oseni Abubakre with CGPA of 3.86 (Tech), Balogun Abdulumeen 3.86/4.0 (Tech), Oyedeji Khadijat Agriculture 3.82 (Agric), OSeni Latifat 3.82/4.0 (Tech), Adediran Zinat 3.79 (Science), Kareem Muize 3.78 (Science), Usman Mubaraq 3.77 (Arts), Adebayo Abdulrahman 3.76 (Social Science) and Okewale Toyeeb with 5 Distinctions (Vet Med).

Meanwhile, the undergraduates on first-class were presented with medals, certificates, and cash prize, while first-class graduates received plaques and certificates, with the top ten among them also receiving cash prizes.

Undergraduate awardees express readiness to strive

Some of the undergraduates who were awarded expressed happiness for the gesture of cash and kind for their efforts as your scholars.

One of the students is a 200-level student of Law who bagged 3.96/4.0, Aisha Adebiyi, who said the award has propelled her to make extra efforts to sustain the achievement.

Aisha said:

“Well, it's so fulfilling after having to put in so much effort and dedication to it. I feel so grateful, honestly, because it's not a small feat to pull such a CGPA in that Faculty.

“And moving forward, I expect Allah's mercy throughout my journey. No matter how difficult it might get, I hope I'm still able to pull through.”

Olowu of Owu Kingdom graced the event

The keynote speaker, the Olowu of Owu Kingdom, Oba Professor Saka Matemilola, speaking on the theme Fortis Conatus (strong efforts) congratulated the awardees and urged those still in school to maintain their excellent performance. He encouraged other students to emulate the awardees and strive for academic excellence.

The Olowu proposed Mentorship Programme to ease financial burden of students

The Olowu of Owu Kingdom proposed the establishment of mentorship programmes and advocated for initiatives aimed at easing students' financial burdens.

Emphasising the need for supportive policies, the Olowu of Owu Kingdom said,

“We must strive to ensure free education, affordable housing, a learning-conducive environment, and access to books. Everything that makes education easier must be provided so that you can focus fully on your studies and achieve success.”

Other speakers, including the Chief Imam of the University, Professor Oloyede Abdulrahman, who attended the programme alongside Professor Rasheed Aderinoye, Professor Yusuf Sulaimon, and Professor A.R.A. Alada, motivated students to work hard, aim for excellence, and pursue success beyond the university.

Ameer justifies the award

Speaking with Legit.ng, the Ameer (President) of the Muslim Students’ Society, University of Ibadan, Mr Umar-Faruq Qamarudeen, said the award was to show the capacity of the Muslim students and also to serve as motivation for others, especially the new students in the university.

He said:

“To debunk the issue that MSS or any Muslim organisation usually focus more only on Arabic and religious aspects. So, as a Muslim organization on campus, we strive for excellence academically and spiritually and that is one of the things that is actually necessary to ensure that us bringing the program, to ensure that when people see that we celebrate excellence like first class students, first class graduates, that will ensure that the paradigm shift will be there and they see us as people who have in place academic exploits and to ensure that people are rewarded and excellence is being rewarded.”

Mr Qamarudeen added that it was necessary to encourage other members who are thirsty for excellence and some who only need motivation to excel.

“The second reason the program came into existence was that when we have students who strive to attain excellence, one of the things we can do for them is to encourage them, so when we encourage them they are rewarded and they would be motivated to do more and to strive for excellence and due to that reason we encourage a certain number of first class students, years to come people will see it as a need to drive their posits and therefore there would be more Muslim students on first class and we will have a lot of them to celebrate.”

“Basically, everything that we do is basically to serve Allah SWT and we serve Allah SWT in many ways and as students, one of the ways we can serve Allah SWT is to ensure that we are one of the top students, whenever decision making anything regarding our faith is been made that we are there so as to ensure that whatever decision is being made is not affecting us and to be there, we have to endure that we are top of our class, we strive for excellence. So on that note, the program has two things to serve"

Firewood seller’s son graduates top of his class

In a related development, Legit.ng reported that Uthman Olayode, the son of a firewood seller and a secondary school teacher, had emerged as the best graduating student at Abiola Ajimobi Technical University (AATU), with an impressive Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.98 out of 5.00.

Olayode, a graduate of physics with electronics from the Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences, was honoured at the university’s 3rd and 4th combined convocation ceremonies held on April 11 in Ibadan.

Addressing the gathering during his valedictory speech, the first-class graduate recounted a difficult academic journey marked by multiple admission failures.

Source: Legit.ng