Past students of University of Port Harcourt, weekend kick started its alumni association, Abia State chapter.
In the maiden meeting Abia State chapter convened in Umuahia by Dr. Austeen Ekpo and others including, Dr. Stanford Ubani, Chief Uche Okorafor Ekpo, Omeonu Okechukwu Henry, Rt. Hon. Stanley Ohajuruka, and Chris Onwuegbu among others, the alumni association said in the school, “we met to create the man-made heat wave, very hot weather, or the very cold winter weather.
“The weather was too hot to handle and too cold to drop, yet God saw us through.
“God is still with us and that is enough for us to be thankful. This meeting is our testimony”.
The spokesperson of the association Dr. Austeen Ekpo said “It is a day set aside for reminding us the need to unite and reunite ourselves as good friends and colleagues with common ancestral academic lineage.
“University of Port Harcourt is the great and unique citadel of learning from where we all passed through to become great people.
“The said citadel of learning impacted knowledge and wisdom with which we got to this height in life.
“These are products that passed through University of Port Harcourt when the environment was charged with tension and fear. They successfully went through the system as the system in-turn passed through them.
“Today inspires ideas and discussions concerning how best to build this Alumni Association and to make the Association a forum for like minds”.
Addressing the press, Dr. Ekpo said despite attempts to bring members together has failed, “a handful of us have come together to champion the existence of the alumni association in Abia. The body has come to stay”.
“We are talking about unity and like minds. As we grow, you will remember those you graduated with, some dead and some alive.
“If God has given you the grace in the land of the living, why don’t you remember from where you came?”
He called on those who graduated from the university and residing in Abia to joing hands with the association to move it forward.
