University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) has conferred a honorary doctorate degree in Business Administration on Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.
Emefiele was honoured on Friday in Nsukka at the Special Convocation of the institution.
About 50 people were also conferred with doctoral degrees in different fields of studies.
This comes after the Senate on Thursday confirmed his re-appointment for a second tenure of five years as CBN governor.
Emefiele, at the ceremony, gave a lecture titled “From Recession to Growth: The Story of Nigeria’s Recovery from the 2016 Economic Recession.”
He told his audience some of the actions CBN took to address recession which hit the country.
Some of the steps taken, he said, were monetary and foreign exchange policies, development finance interventions and bailout programmes to states.
Emefiele said that since the Anchor Borrowers Programme, the country had been able to save over $800 million due to decline in the importation of rice.
“So far, the programme has supported more than 1,059,604 small holder farmers across all the 36 states of Nigeria in cultivating 16 different commodities over 1.114 million hectares of farmland.
“It has also supported the creation of over 2.5 million jobs across the agricultural value chain.
“A key emphasis was placed on improving rice production, given the considerable weight importation of rice had on Nigeria’s import bill,” he said.
UNN Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Benjamin Ozumba, called on philanthropists and alumni of the university to join hands with the Federal Government in funding the school.
“I urge us all to remain committed to the task of preserving the traditions and standards, for which our university is known for,” he said.
