NDDC Sends UK Delegation To Verify Scholarship Claims

OFFICIALS of the Niger Delta Development Commission are currently in the United Kingdom with the aim of verifying claims being made by students under the commission’s scholarship about their outstanding fees and stipends.

The students and other stakeholders have protested the failure of the commission to pay the fees as and when due.

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had on August 4 ordered the NDDC to pay the scholars by the end of the week (August 7).

About seven weeks after that presidential directive, the Executive Director, Projects of the commission’s Interim Management Committee, Cairo Ojougboh, on Wednesday disclosed that he was currently leading a team of officials who were verifying the claims in UK.

In a series of tweets posted on his Twitter handle, @AkinuwaAnioma, Ojougboh gave an indication that the students will be paid in “the next few weeks.”

Justifying the team’s trip to UK, he claimed that some of those who were awarded scholarship in 2019 did not leave Nigeria for their foreign studies.

Ojuugboh wrote, “The commission decided to verify the scholarship awards because of obvious discrepancies and the fact that some of those awarded the scholarship in 2019 did not leave Nigeria for their studies in the UK.”