Three prominent businessmen bagged honorary doctorate degrees on Saturday when Crescent University, Abeokuta, graduated 141 candidates.

The three businessmen were the Chairman of Honeywell Flour Mills Plc, Mr. Oba Otudeko; Chairman, CFAO Nigeria Plc, Chief Molade Okoya-Thomas; and the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the BUA Group, Alhaji Abdul Samad Rabiu.

The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Resolution of Security Challenges in Nigeria, Sheikh Ahmed Lemu, was also honoured accordingly.

During its fifth convocation ceremony, Crescent conferred on Lemu, Otudeko, Okoya-Thomas and Rabiu honourary doctorate degrees in Public Administration, Banking and Finance, Accounting and Business Administration respectively.

Also, while eight graduates bagged first class degree, 55 others graduated in the second class upper division in various programmes.

Fifty-four graduates also got the second class lower degree while 24 others bagged third class.

CUAB also graduated 20 other students with certificates and diploma in Islamic and Computer Studies.

The institution also graduated its first set of students of Diploma in Law with a traditional ruler, Oba Femi Ogunleye, as the first candidate.

In his speech on the occasion, the Proprietor of the university, Prince Bola Ajibola, commended the National Universities Commission for its “stringent and tedious peer review accreditation processes.”

Ajibola said the processes had done the Nigerian university system a lot of good, adding that the NUC deserved credit.

The CUAB proprietor added that the institution had enjoyed international support, especially with the assistance coming to it from the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian governments.

He said: “The Egyptian government, through the country’s Ministry of Endowment, has posted an Imam to the university. The Saudi government on its part has co-funded the building of one of our male hostels, Saudi Hall, and has further promised to do more particularly in aiding endeavours that could generate funds for our institution.”

Also, CUAB Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Hassan Okeleye, said due to “improved facilities and awareness” the university witnessed an improvement in the population of students from about 600 to 1, 228 in the 2012/2013 academic session.

Okeleye also said all its academic programmes, which initially had interim approval, had been granted full accreditation by the NUC.

He added that new programmes, including Law, Architecture, Urban and Regional Planning, Estate Management and Environmental Management, had passed the NUC Resources Verification Assessments as well as those of professional bodies.