The Vice-Chancellor and Special Guest of Honour of today,
Professor Oluwafemi Olaiya Balogun
Profession (Mrs.) Elizabeth Abidemi Balogun,
Other Principal Officers,
The Vice-Chancellor Designate,
Professor O. B. Oyewole
Invited Guests,
The Enitre Wonderful Bursary Staff,

Ladies and Gentlemen
I consider it a great privilege to welcome you all here this morning. We are here to:
– Acknowledge and celebrate, as a way to:
– Show and commend, in order to:
– Appreciate and honour our Vice-Chancellor – Professor Oluwafemi Olaiya Balogun, for the lofty heights and enviable position he has led us to attain as an Institution, a Department or as Individuals, during his tenure as the Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta from May 24, 2007 to May 23, 2012.

The Vice-Chancellor, Sir, we are extremely delighted to have you in our midst today and also for having the opportunity to express our appreciation for your valuable contribution towards the overall development of the Bursary Department and the University at large.
By sheer demonstration of experience, knowledge, intelligence, love commitment and passion for the job, you have removed the stigma of incompetence labeled the Bursary Department.
The Bursary, in the eyes of many, was seen as inefficient and ineffective. It was a Department, everybody, both reasonable and unreasonable, was offering all manners of ‘specialist’ advices for improvement.
“E sowo” became the unprofessional identity for portraying the uncoordinated and unregulated financial administration of the University. Merit and sound professional judgment were ignored for self-serving and deceptive conducts. The Bursary was at best, reduced to a Department for raising mere payment vouchers.

People were playing unreasonable politics with the financial fortune of the University; no conscious effort for sincere and genuine development through fund utilization. And there was no tangible thing to justify the utilization of the internally generated revenue of the University. Name it, appointment, promotion, deployment, training etc., were crudely determined and made without purpose. Staff were demoralized and frustrated. Cerebration of who you know, and not what you know and not what you can do, was the order of the day.

To God be the glory, you have reorganized and restructured the Bursary for good. An action you took on the directive of Mr. Visitor, as contained in the Visitation Report of the administration before you assumed office.

The Bursary can now pride itself in:
– Proper staffing with qualitative personnel equipped by continuing local and foreign training,
– Full computerization of all operations,
– Effective decentralization into collegiate accounting structure,
– Proper reorganization into Directorate system for efficiency,
– Responsiveness to responsibilities.
For all these, we are grateful and we celebrate you, Sir. Your life is a gospel for people to read and emulate.
Sir, as you are aware of the enormity of the Bursary responsibility, both within and outside the University, we appeal for the replacement of the bus we have in the Department.
As you prepare to hand over the mantle of leadership to your successor, we wish you the best in your future undertakings.
We sincerely thank you, Sir, for giving us the opportunity to interact with you.