Havilah Group, a records management and archiving solutions company, has endowed an annual N500,000 prize for the best graduating student of Library Science and Information Technology at the University of Jos.
Its Chief Executive of the company, Otunba Lanre Adesuyi announced the prize during a thank you visit to Havilah Group in Abuja by the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof Tanko Ishaya and the management of the institution.
The visit was sequel to Havilah Group’s donation of books valued at more than N5 million to the university towards the restoration of its library razed by fire a few years ago.
‘We decided to institute the prize as part of our company’s efforts at encouraging professionalism in library studies, which we also align with our overall objective of promoting efficient records management in Nigeria’, Adesuyi said, adding, ‘Libraries are destroyed not just by physical occurrences as fire but by the dearth of young and knowledgeable professionals whose primary responsibility is to build and develop libraries’.
Adesuyi told his visitors: ‘Great countries have ways of combining town with the gown. In the true spirit of giving and receiving, Havilah Group and the University of Jos have mutually planted seeds that will bear fruits of future successes. We are grateful to God and the management of UNIJOS for the opportunity of being relevant in responding to the crucial needs of the University as a citadel of learning and research’.
‘Your visit and gifts brought back nostalgic feelings of my early years in Jos where I cut my teeth as a classroom teacher, which eventually prepared me for today’s success story’, he said, stressing, ‘It was the nudge of that spirit that propelled the book donation to your university in the first instance’.
Responding on behalf of the management of UNIJOS, Prof Ishaya, said: ‘We are deeply touched by Havilah Group’s kind reception and the hospitality accorded us. We are equally grateful for your benevolence to UNIJOS. We also thank you for your kind endowment in the profession that you love. We believe this will further cement the mutually beneficial relationship between the university and Havilah Group’.
The Vice Chancellor was accompanied on the visit by the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academics), Prof. Rahilah Gowon; Deputy Vice Chancellor (Administration), Prof. Gray Goziem Ejikeme; the Registrar, Chief Monday Danjem; the University Librarian, Dr. Thomas Akinbayo Adigun and the Bursar, Mr. Philip F. Umbugala.
