The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Usani Usani, has ordered the
immediate suspension of the Niger Delta Development Commission,
NDDC’s scholarship programme.
The NDDC won’t offer any new scholarship until the commission
clears the backlog of payment meant for the old beneficiaries, the
Ministry of Niger Delta said Wednesday on Twitter.
There have been protests from several post-graduate Nigerian
students abroad who said that the NDDC refused to fund its
scholarship scheme, thereby forcing them to go through shameful
hardship on foreign lands.
Those affected are said to be 15 students doing their Master’s
degree and 40 Ph.D. students.
Some of the Ph.D. students have not received money meant for their
tuition and upkeep for more than one year now.
The NDDC international scholarship is worth about $30,000 annually.
Those doing Masters’ degree are expected to spend only one year
on it, while the Ph.D. is expected to last for three years.
PREMIUM TIMES in July published a touching story of Maryleen
Ndubuaku , one of the beneficiaries of the NDDC scholarship, who
couldn’t concentrate on her M.Sc. programme on Embedded
Microelectronics and Wireless Systems, at the Coventry University,
UK, because she didn’t have money to feed herself.
Ms. Ndubuaku, from a middle-income family in Imo State, said she
resorted to borrowing money countless times since she couldn’t do
a part-time job because of the demands of her study.
“As I write to you, my exams are commencing next week but I
cannot help but think about how to pay my rent for the month of
May; because it is she who has shelter and food that thinks of
writing exams,” she said to Nsima Ekere, the Managing Director of
NDDC, in one of her letters of appeal.
Source: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/247384-nigerian-govt-suspends-nddc-scholarship-programme.html