By Victor Akinkuolie, Ado-Ekiti

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The Vice-Chancellor, Ekiti State University, EKSU , Professor Eddy Olanipekun has appealed to the government and members of the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) to embrace dialogue and resume academic activities in the universities.

The Vice-chancellor lamented that the lingering nationwide strike has crippled academic activities in Nigeria Universities, saying the country cannot afford to shutdown after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Olanipekun gave the advised at the weekend during a press conference heralding the university’s 25th and 26th combined convocation ceremony.

Olanipekun also revealed that a total of 133 graduates of EKSU, would be conferred with first class honours as the institution graduates 16,433 at its combined 25th and 26th convocation ceremonies.

Reeling out strides recorded by the university, Olanipekun said 67 out of the 81 academic programmes being undertaken by the institution, were accorded full accreditation by the National Universities Commission(NUC).

“Apart from the foregoing, all our professional programmes have full accreditation from the Council of the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), Institute of chartered Accountants(ICAN) and Council of Legal Education of Nigeria, among others”, Olanipekun said.

Olanipekun added that the university is improving on the development of ICT Infrastructure, with WiFi transmission covering over 20 kilometres radius, applauding the government for enlisting EKSU as one of the institutions that would be covered under the Independent Power Plant project.

Olanipekun stated that his team had worked hard to move the university  from 157 to 14 on we biometric ranking among  the ivory towers operating in the  country.