Stella Emelife Chinelo, a 2012/2013 First Class Graduate of Chemistry from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, has emerged the best graduating student from a Master’s degree from University of Mysore, India with a Final Grade Point (FGP) of 9.623%.
By this feat, the 29-year-old Anambra native who was raised in Sokoto, has broken a 100-year-old academic record at the university.
Stella’s historic performance earned her 20 gold medals and five cash prize awards at the 99th convocation of the Indian university.
Stressing the import of Stella’s performance, the management of the University of Mysore said: “This is perhaps the first time in the recent years that a foreign student has bagged so many gold medals.”
Back at her alma mater in Nigeria on Friday an excited Professor Abdullahi Abdu Zuru, Vice Chancellor of the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, who was speaking at the combined 35th, 36th and 37th combined convocation awards of degrees, diplomas and certificates of UDUS, said academic excellence and standard remain the focus of the institution.
He expressed the belief that any of the current crop of students and graduands could replicate the young Chinelo’s sterling academic performance “by remembering that learning is a lifelong endeavour and its key ingredients are observation, thinking, consultation and decision making”.
Speaking further on the general performance of students at the combined convocation, Zuru said that for the first time since inception, the university was producing a female first class student in physics.
He said the name of the record-breaker is Zainab Abdullahi Bashir from Katsina State, with a CGPA of 4.81 in the 2017/2018 academic session.
Students from other departments with similar impressive academic grades were listed as: Okeke Obinna Kingsley B. of Forestry with CGPA of 4.81 in the 2015/2016 session, Andullahi Saminu Mujammad B. of Fisheries with a 4.84 CGPA in 2016/2017 session and Ojo Suleiman Adebowale who graduated in 2017/2018 session from the Department of Mathematics with a 4.91 CGPA.
