I recently got a letter from Russia from a cousin who wishes she could talk to our president...her and her friends have had serious problems with funds right from the year they entered Russia on scholarship in 2013 (not their fault, no one told them you fend for yourself once you are on a Nigerian/Russian scholarship)...I wanted to edit it but...I guess its best the president sees the situation/pain in her words ...So here is Faeren Adzege, Best student of Set 2008 (I think) in Baptist High Jos, Russian Doctor in the Making talking...

Dear President, Our Daddy, our Uncle
Year in year out, it is the same ordeal for us. Was this part of the agreement we signed or am I being punished for performing excellently as a scholarship student? Then I ask, "do the men and women of power treat their own children this same way?" I mean, ten months of unpaid stipends with only nothing but debt, debt and even more debt lurking around me. I heard the 2016 budget has been signed, why then haven't we been paid till now? Who have we offended to be treated this way?
My name is Adzege Faeren and I am a Nigerian scholar currently studying in Russia under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) scholarship scheme.
Three years ago, I was sent to Russia to study Medicine with many mouth watering promises accompanying it. One of them was the promise of monthly stipends from the Nigerian government. However, this promise has never been a reality for us. I am most certain that many people reading this letter are already familiar with this yearly outcry from scholarship students abroad, but, I will still cry anyway.
For the past ten months, we have not received any single support from the Federal Government of Nigeria in form of stipends. What's even more disheartening is the fact that the Russian government ALWAYS fulfil(s) their own part of the bilateral agreement i.e paying our tuition and giving us some monthly support (5% compared to the stipend we are supposed to receive from the Nigerian Government), yet our fatherland Nigeria forgets about us totally.
The inability of the Nigerian Government to pay our stipends in time have left us borrowing and owing. With a new session in view, scholarship students are left with the option of getting money through various illegal means or risk being thrown out of our hostels and subsequently getting deported. Also, we need to renew our health insurances and buy warm clothes in preparation for winter. Unfortunately, we can't get these done on credit.
Or is it the case of the undergraduate students who just finished their scholarship program (majority with first class honours), who are forcefully trapped in Russia as they haven't received plane tickets and the rest of their stipends so as to go back home? A lot more cases, worse stories, yet our parents at the top are undisturbed or don't even know at all.
This leads me to wonder, "will the president, vice president, senators, minister or whoever it is, treat us this way if we were their own children?" I am certain most of their children school abroad. What I'm not certain about is if their children are owed monies for this long or even owed at all by their parents.
Please, mummy and daddy, think of us as your own and do what you will to your own children, onto us. If not for anything but for the fact that we are all Nigerians and we, your children are doing you proud in our various institutions, in Russia. PLEASE, CROWN OUR EFFORTS WITH STIPENDS. When all the conditions are favourable, we will do even more to bring more glory to our great country. All we seek is to be thought of as human beings (who need money for daily survival), to be paid our arrears and please, for the payment to be made constant.
Thanks.
Your loyal daughter,
Adzege Faeren
Stavropol State Medical University
Stavropol, Russia