NDDC Scholarship: Students’ Tuition Still unpaid After 10days Of President’s Intervention

Over 10 days after the President, Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), instructed the Niger Delta Development Commission to pay the tuition fees of its 2019 scholars, and yet no tuition paid till now.

Over 200 scholars had been awarded scholarships by the NDDC in 2019 to pursue postgraduate studies abroad, fully funded by the commission. Each beneficiary was supposed to get N500,000 as take-off grant and $30,000 for tuition fees.

However, a year after the scholarship was granted, the commission has not paid the scholars’ tuition fees, with many of them facing expulsion and subsequently deportation from the countries where they are studying. Findings also showed that the NDDC only paid the take-off grant of N500,000 about eight months after the scholarships were awarded.

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A former acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Dr Joi Nunieh, had accused the commission’s Interim Management Committee of misappropriation of funds and alleged that the Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, hijacked the forensic audit of the agency ordered by the President.

Consequently, the National Assembly had separately conducted probes into the 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.

Intervening in the situation, the President on August 4 ordered the commission to pay its scholarship beneficiaries studying abroad and the NDDC refused to pay.