Really what is it that this government has not done wrong? I am yet to see one. read....

When Moyosore Ojuri lost her father at age 11, her world practically
came crashing. Her father had promised to give her the best of
education. Although he was not a millionaire, the man had struggled
to enrol her in one of the top private secondary schools in Lagos.
But with the death, her mother, a retired civil servant, could not pay
her tuition when due. Luckily, the authorities of her school recognised
the young lady’s academic exploits and gave her family the
concession to pay her tuition in installments. Even with that, her
mother had difficulty doing so as she occasionally ran into debts.
However, on completion of her secondary education in 2010, Ojuri
passed the West African Senior School Certificate Examination,
obtaining six distinctions and two credits. But accessing university
education did not come that easy, due to lack of funds. Fortunately
for her, in 2012 she came across the Bilateral Education Agreement
Scholarship Awards advertised by the Federal Scholarship Board
through the Federal Ministry of Education and grabbed the
opportunity.
Ojuri passed the series of tests and interviews and was given
admission to study Metallurgical Engineering at the Volgograd State
Technical University, Russia. On touching down at the Domodedovo
International Airport, Moscow, Russia on September 22, 2012, Ojuri
concluded that her pains and frustration had come to an end.
Nigeria has BEA for undergraduate and post-graduate studies with
Russia, Cuba, Morocco, Algeria, Romania, Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt,
Japan, Serbia, Macedonia, China, and Mexico. Under the arrangement,
the Federal Government pays for the upkeep of the students, while the
countries where the scholarship award is tenable provides the tuition.
Two years after, Ojuri has a different story to share. Speaking with our
correspondent on the telephone from Volgograd, she says that the
Federal Government has since abandoned the BEA scholars to starve
to death.
According to her, for eight months running now, the over 322
promising Nigerian students on the BEA initiative in the former Soviet
Union have not been paid a dime by the government. Each of the
beneficiaries’ monthly stipends for feeding is $500, while their annual
allowance for medicals and clothing is $450 each.
But from January till date, none of these allowances have been paid
by the Nigerian government, despite repeated appeals and other forms
of representations to the Nigerian Embassy in Moscow and the
Federal Ministry of Education in Abuja.
Following the non-remittance of funds, Ojuri and her Nigerian
colleagues, of late, have no choice but to borrow money as a survival
strategy from their fellow African students enjoying similar BEA.
The 20-year-old asks rhetorically, “We are not private students. We
came to Russia on the bill of the Federal Government. Why haven’t
the authorities paid our stipends and other allowances for eight
months now? For how long shall we continue to borrow money?”
The youngster, who says she has a huge debt on her neck at present,
notes that their colleagues from other countries are no longer
comfortable lending them money.
She adds, “On many occasions, I have had cause to go to class on an
empty stomach. Getting money for transportation from my hostel to
school has become very problematic. More worrisome is the fact that
I will soon be homeless as my hostel fees will expire at the end of
August. We are grateful to the Federal Government for the scholarship
opportunity, but there is no sense in leaving us here to starve to
death in a foreign land.”
Findings by our correspondent reveal that the inability to get work
permit by foreign students in Russia is further compounding their
problems. So, how do they survive the starvation and hard times in
the Eurasian country?
Another Nigerian, Akinola Akindamola, pursuing his Master’s degree
at the Volgograd State Technical University, explains that they engage
in all kinds of oddities to survive. According to him, the pressure is
even more on his female colleagues.
Akindamola, a first class Mechanical Engineering graduate, says, “It is
unfortunate that girls with exceptional academic brilliance are now
forced to indulge in all manner of indecent lifestyles. These girls now
go to clubs and dance semi nude for a fee that could be as low as
$20. For the boys, employers use us for odd jobs, such as clearing of
snow and as labourers on construction sites. Even as we do that,
there is this perpetual fear that the police will arrest us.”
A final year Medicine and Surgery student of the Russian National
Research Medical University, Moscow, David Ikenna, also admits that
the failure of the Federal Government to remit their allowances
exposes them to risks in the country.
Ikenna states, “We have been finding a way to survive by
circumventing the laws, but it is at great risk to our personal safety
and academic pursuits in Russia. Our situation is frustrating. My
brother, we are suffering. How I wish I could bring you here to see how
miserable our conditions are. The Nigerian government has failed us
miserably.

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.punchng.com/news/students-on-fg-scholarship-begging-for-food-in-russia/

Personal scholarship is more preferable to the useless government scholarship