Jesusegun Alagbe Zashaya Awele leapt for joy when she got a scholarship from the Niger Delta Development Commission in August 2019...
Jesusegun Alagbe
Zashaya Awele leapt for joy when she got a scholarship from
the Niger Delta Development Commission in August 2019 for a master’s degree at
a London university in the United Kingdom. But one year after, her joy has
turned into anxiety, worry, and depression. The reasons for her condition are
quite enormous.
Like other scholars, when she got the scholarship, the
commission promised to pay them a N500,000 take-off grant to process their
visas and procure flight tickets to their destination countries. Apart from the
take-off grant, the commission was also supposed to pay them $30,000 (N11.6m),
which covered their tuition fees and living expenses.
A year after, Awele has yet to receive the grant to pay her
tuition fees. In fact, the NDDC did not pay the N500,000 take-off grant until
April 2020 – eight months after the scholarship was awarded.
Awele, a Delta State indigene who worked at a private clinic
in Abuja until she got the scholarship, had to sell off some of her properties
and borrow money to raise funds for her travel to the UK. She eventually got to
school in October 2019.
“I waited for two months expecting to get the take-off
grant. When it was not forthcoming and I couldn’t wait, I had to raise funds to
travel to the UK. We were paid the take-off grant just about four months ago.
However, we have yet to get the tuition fees,” she told our correspondent.
The non-payment of her tuition fees a year after securing
the scholarship was what was eating up Awele as the consequences were
wide-ranging, including de-registration by the school and deportation by the UK
Home Office.
She said, “There are some of us who have been de-registered
and what it means is that all the academic work that we’ve been doing for a
year is null and void. The implication is that the school could say we are no
longer their students and report us to the Home Office and throw us out of the
country because we reneged on our agreement with them.
“Right now, I can’t read or concentrate on my studies; I’m
constantly thinking, ‘When am I going to pay my tuition fees? How am I going to
pay my rent? How am I going to eat?’ At this point, I’m scared, devastated,
worried, and depressed. I can’t even work on my project. I’m constantly
thinking, I’m really in a bad state.”
Coupled with the non-payment of her tuition fees, Awele also
has no job to cater to her basic needs, which makes her feel more frustrated
and depressed.
She said, “I don’t have a job. I had one before COVID-19 but
it was barely enough to cater to my needs. I was lucky I was staying with a
relative, so my accommodation was taken care of. But now I stay alone, and now
there are rent, intra-city travel, and feeding expenses. I don’t have a means
of livelihood.
“I know fellow scholars who sleep in train stations, roaming
around the streets during the day and sleeping on the benches at night. And
these are NDDC scholars.”
But Awele is not alone in her situation. The same fate is
being witnessed by the 2019 set of NDDC scholars studying in various
universities abroad.
One of them is Olukayode Olugbemi, an Ondo State indigene
who graduated from the Department of Law at the Obafemi Awolowo University,
Ile-Ife, Osun State, in 2015 before proceeding to study Master’s of Law in
International Commercial Law at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.
Olugbemi, who said he was working at a Lagos law firm when
he got the NDDC scholarship in August 2019, stated that he resigned, sold his
car and other properties to raise funds to travel to the UK because the
commission didn’t pay the N500,000 take-off grant promptly.
He said, “I was working at a law firm before I obtained the
scholarship, so it was easier for me to raise the fund. I know those who
obtained loans while others sold off their properties to get money to process
their visas and procure flight tickets.
“The take-off grant was paid in April after we made a lot of
noise on social media. But the second payment of $30,000 which is for tuition
fees and living expenses has not been paid. As the NDDC has delayed the payment
of our tuition fees, the schools have transferred the responsibility of making
the payment to us, which is difficult. The schools said they had sent repeated
emails to the NDDC but the commission neither acknowledged nor responded to
them.”
Olugbemi stated that some scholars were doing menial jobs to
make a living but the jobs were lost when the COVID-19 pandemic began in the
UK, adding that the only job that seemed available now was care home jobs.
“But the problem with a care home job is that it is risky
because many of the COVID-19 cases recorded in the UK are in care homes. For
someone like me, I’m living on savings made from my job in Nigeria,” he said.
However, as his savings are getting depleted, so is Olugbemi’s anxiety rising.
He said, “I had a good job before leaving Nigeria. I had a
growing fantastic career and suddenly, I got a scholarship. I was excited and
decided to take up the offer. When I was travelling, I sold my car and
everything in my house. All I could gather from that is what I have been living
on. I resumed school in January 2020 and decided to get a job to complement
whatever I had.
“I got a job as a waiter at one of the hospitality groups.
We did training and they were about to deploy me when the coronavirus lockdown
started in the UK. In short, I was out of the job at the time I got it. I have
one or two friends who have been generous to me but it is not easy having been
someone who is financially independent to now be asking friends for support.”
Asked if he regretted leaving his job for the scholarship,
Olugbemi said he had mixed feelings.
He said, “If the Nigerian system had worked better, maybe I
wouldn’t be in this mess. There was a scholarship I could have applied for that
would cover all expenses. But when I applied for a transcript from my
university, it took four months for it to be processed. By the time I was given
the transcript, the scholarship was gone. I had no choice but to rely on the
NDDC scholarship. Maybe if I had stayed in Nigeria to get other fully-funded
scholarships, it would have been better.
“But all the same, the course I’m studying is worth it but
it’s the pressure that comes with it that is not worth it. Recently, I emerged
as one of the winners at a global competition, and I probably wouldn’t have got
it if I was not in school. Yes, I love the opportunity of being in school but I
don’t enjoy the stress that comes with the NDDC scholarship.”
Olugbemi’s feelings could perhaps be understandable. Right
now, he said he had an accommodation debt of £2,000 (N1m), in addition to the
tuition fees of £19,000 (N9.6m). Obviously, he has no means to pay the debt
until the NDDC pays him the $30,000 scholarship grant.
He added, “It’s more difficult for PhD students who have
three years to study. A lot of them are into courses that are germane to the
development of the Niger Delta and will have an impact on the region. For
instance, I have a friend who is doing a PhD in Waste Water Resources, which
has a lot to do with the Niger Delta situation.
“But guess what, my friend’s PhD was suspended last
Wednesday because the school said they had given the NDDC enough time to make
the payment but there had been no response. Her deadline was initially July 1
but it was shifted to July 22. My own deadline was July 28. It’s frustrating
that our academic lives are being toyed with.”
Another scholar, Samuel Danor, who is undergoing a master’s
degree in Cybersecurity at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, has been
working at a care home to make ends meet in spite of the risks involved.
He said, “I am scared because I am working at a care home in
Leicester and according to medical experts here, care homes are the riskiest
places to contract the coronavirus. In fact, we do the COVID-19 test every
Wednesday because of the high exposure.
“I used to work at a factory but when it was shut down due
to COVID-19 and things were tough for me, I had to take up the care home job
with all its attendant risks. My school has sent me three different warning
emails to pay the tuition fees or face the consequences.”
Danor, who worked at a tank farm in Calabar, Cross River
State, said he planned to marry after saving some money from the job. But when
the scholarship offer came in August 2019, he resigned in September 2019 and
travelled to the UK in October 2019.
“I sold everything in my house to be in the UK. I raised
funds from the WhatsApp group of my local government area. People gave me money
ranging from N1,000 to N10,000. My father also got a loan so I could travel but
see what’s happening to me today,” he lamented.
Danor added, “Let me share this with you to know how
pathetic our condition is. Some NDDC scholars are begging to survive in the UK,
some are eating expired foods, some are depressed. If not for the care home job
that I got, maybe my fate would have been similar to theirs.
“If the NDDC had even written letters to our schools to
assure them that they would pay our tuition fees, our situation would be less
pathetic. Some of us might be deported soon because the school has already
logged us out of their portals.”
Another scholar, Chijioke Ukwuegbu, who is studying Master
of Business Administration at Yale School of Management in the United States,
said when he saw that the tuition fees payment was being delayed, he had to
take a private loan to pay it and get a menial job to survive.
“There are scholarships that don’t give stress like this. I
came to the US in August and managed to get a job. I was made to understand
that schools here don’t have time chasing students around to pay their tuition
fees, so I took a private loan to pay the school fees. Then, I got a menial job
to survive,” he said.
Ukwuegbu stated that it was risky working at a place where
there was high COVID-19 cases, adding that he said he had to choose between
dying of hunger or dying of COVID-19.
“Someone can either die of hunger or COVID-19. Hunger can
kill but with COVID-19, someone has a chance of living. That is why I am
working,” he said, adding, “I’m upset and depressed because of the long wait
for the NDDC to pay the tuition fees.”
Like other scholars, Suzor Louis, a Rivers State indigene
studying for a master’s degree in International Business and Finance at the
University of Derby, England, said he was happy when he got a call in September
2019 that the NDDC had awarded him a scholarship. But his joy turned anxiety.
First, he borrowed money to make the trip happen in January
2020 as the NDDC did not pay the take-off grant. On getting to the UK, he
couldn’t get a job due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid the crisis, his father
died on June 11 three days after sharing his unpalatable condition in the UK
with the aged man.
He said, “Sometimes, I think I contributed to my father’s
death in a way because three days before he died, I was discussing with him my
plight here. He asked how I was coping and I had to just tell him everything.
He was hypertensive; he got worried easily. He asked me about the implication
of the school shutting me out of their portal and I told him the school would
report me to the Home Office and I would be deported. I just hope it wasn’t my
issue that made him have high blood pressure and die. I hope my troubles didn’t
contribute to his death.
“When we hear of the mind-boggling billions of naira being
mismanaged at the NDDC, it is heartbreaking. They keep telling us bureaucratic
bottlenecks at the CBN were responsible for the delay in payment, but I don’t
understand why this is so. They asked us to open bank accounts and we did so,
but nothing has come out of it. We keep hearing of different excuses. They want
us scholars to do well in school but how can we do this in the midst of all
these?
“I keep on sending an email to the school every now and then
to apologise for the delay in the tuition fees payment of £19,000 (N9.6m) but
obviously they are tired of my excuses. I don’t know how to raise such funds
now. I had to take accommodation outside the campus which costs me £400
(N201,000) per month; it’s more expensive on the campus.”
Louis said he had applied for a job at a care home but there
was no vacancy right now in his location.
He said, “Sometimes, I ask myself if this scholarship is a
curse. My mother cautioned me to stop asking this question the other day. But I
can’t help myself. Maybe I should have just stayed on my job back at home and
kept on moving gradually.
“It’s not been easy for my wife, who is a corps member. I
had to beg her to manage whatever stipend she is being given. We are even in a
country with high COVID-19 cases but the NDDC does not care about us. We told
ourselves the other day that if one of us died here as a result of COVID-19,
the NDDC wouldn’t care.
“We didn’t beg to get this scholarship; we were offered. If
I knew this scholarship was like this, I would have probably rejected it
because coming to suffer here is not what I wish anyone. If there was no
COVID-19 pandemic, I wouldn’t have been so bothered; at least there are other
scholars here in previous sets who worked to pay their tuition fees.”
Other stranded NDDC
scholars in Nigeria
Meanwhile, our correspondent’s findings showed that some
2019 NDDC scholars were still stranded in Nigeria and had yet to travel to
their schools abroad because they couldn’t raise funds to do so. Even when the
NDDC eventually paid the N500,000 take-off grant of scholars in April, our
correspondent learnt that those stranded in Nigeria were not paid. Hence, some
of them had to defer their admission until the next academic year to raise
funds.
One of them is Mercy Eyo, an Akwa Ibom State indigene, who
said as someone from a poor background, she could not source for the money to
process her visa and flight ticket, hence she had to stay back in Nigeria.
She said, “I was supposed to go for a master’s degree in
Global Healthcare Management at Coventry University, UK but I couldn’t raise
the funds to travel because the take-off grant has not been paid to date.
“I am currently unemployed, although I am a volunteer at a
community hospital where I reside. I live from hand to mouth. I sold most of my
belongings and took loans from friends to initially process the visa and buy
flight ticket but it wasn’t enough. At the moment, I am heavily indebted. I am
also experiencing a life-threatening situation right now.
“I eat whatever comes my way to stay alive. I shed tears
once in a while when I am depressed. I feel worse as each day passes by without
any good news from the NDDC.”
Another stranded Nigerian awaiting the N500,000 take-off
grant, simply identified as Ebi, said she had to defer her admission for a
year, thinking she would be able to raise funds to travel. However, she has not
been able to do so.
She said, “I was awarded the scholarship in August 2019 to
study in the UK but all is not well now. Some scholars were able to raise funds
to travel but I couldn’t. When the NDDC paid scholars in April, I expected that
those of us stranded in Nigeria would also be paid but we have not been paid.
Why should the commission pay those abroad and leave us out? This is another
thing I don’t understand.
“Sometimes though when our colleagues who travelled reveal
to us what they are passing through, I weep. They are not having it easy over
there? I ask myself if this is what I will also face when I get there.”
NDDC in the grip of graft allegations
Headquartered in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, the NDDC was
established in 2000 by former President Olusegun Obasanjo with the mission of
facilitating the rapid, even and sustainable development of the Niger Delta
into a region that is economically prosperous, socially stable, ecologically
regenerative and politically peaceful.
Among others, one of the core mandates of the commission is
to train and educate the youth of the oil-rich Niger Delta to curb hostilities
and militancy, while developing key infrastructure to promote diversification
and productivity.
To achieve this aim, the commission established the Foreign
Post Graduate Scholarship for students from the Niger Delta states who have a
first degree at a minimum of a second-class lower division or better and who
have already completed their National Youth Service Corps programme. Those
wishing to undertake a PhD must also have a good result at the master’s level
from a recognised university in Nigeria.
Over 200 scholars had been awarded the scholarship in 2019
to pursue postgraduate studies abroad, fully funded by the NDDC. Each
beneficiary was supposed to get N500,000 as take-off grant and $30,000 for
tuition fees.
However, beneficiaries of the commission’s 2019 scholarship
programme are currently facing a hard time abroad due to the non-payment of
their tuition fees by the NDDC a year after they were granted the scholarship.
Even their take-off grant was paid eight months after they were given the
scholarship.
All these are happening amid corruption allegations levelled
against the NDDC.
Recently, a former acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Dr
Joi Nunieh, levelled allegations against the Interim Management Committee of
the commission that the Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill
Akpabio, hijacked the forensic audit of the agency ordered by the President,
Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd).
The President in October 2019 set up a three-man committee
“to create the enabling environment for the forensic audit that covers 18 years
of NDDC’s operations between 2001 and 2019.”
As a result, the National Assembly had been separately
conducting probes into an allegation that the IMC squandered over N81.5bn
between January and July 2020.
Among those summoned were Akpabio and the acting Managing
Director of the NDDC, Prof Kemebradikumo Pondei, who slumped during a recent
hearing.
Meanwhile, the Senate ad hoc committee set up to unravel the
alleged financial recklessness by the IMC of the NDDC recently recommended its
dissolution.
The panel also recommended that the NDDC should be returned
to the Presidency for direct supervision, adding that monitoring and advisory
bodies recognised by the Act which established the NDDC should be inaugurated
immediately.
Scholars deserve
better life –Niger Deltans
Meanwhile, some activists have called on the NDDC to pay the
tuition fees and living expenses of scholars stranded abroad.
A lawyer and human rights activist based in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State, Mr Charles Pondei, said, “The NDDC should pay the scholars now.
It is saddening that human capital development is treated with levity by the
NDDC; if not, they would have paid the scholars. Imagine a situation where the
scholars are suffering depression because of the non-payment of their tuition
fees. This is not right.”
An educationist in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Dr Rachael
Damingo, said the NDDC ought to show passion for the human capital development
of the region but lamented that this was not so.
“We crave a better life and environment in this region but
it is heartbreaking that it is our own people who have allegedly stolen our
collective wealth. Both in the cities and the rural areas, you can hardly see
any meaningful development in Niger Delta? Where has our money gone?” she
asked.
Also, a lawyer based in Asaba, Delta State, Mr David
Government, said, “It is human rights abuse to send scholars abroad and abandon
them. I think the NDDC needs an overhauling.”
When contacted on Wednesday, the Director of Corporate
Affairs of the NDDC, Charles Odili, asked our correspondent to send a text
message for him to respond to any enquiries.
But he had yet to respond to the enquiries as of the time of
filing this report.
Meanwhile, the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission has appealed
to NDDC to pay its stranded scholars abroad.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Chairman/CEO, NiDCOM, Abike
Dabiri-Erewa, said the NDDC should “as a matter of urgency intervene by
promptly paying the allowances, tuition (fees) and other incentives of students
on their scholarship scheme, to guarantee their stay and continue their
education in the United Kingdom.”
Dabiri-Erewa also noted that some of the NDDC scholars had
turned to beggars in foreign countries.
“At the moment, there have been persistent calls by the
students for urgent intervention. While the deadline for payment of the fees of
some of the students has expired or about to expire, non-payment of their
allowances have turned many of them to virtually become beggars,” she said.
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