Some post-graduate students under the Niger Delta Development Commission foreign scholarship in the United Kingdom started another round of protest over the inability of the agency to pay their tuition.
The students marched to the Nigerian High Commission in London to express their displeasure over the inability of the commission to offset their fees.
The protesting students are among the 94 students of the Batch 2018 of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) foreign scholarship programme who are yet to receive tuition and allowance for their upkeep from their sponsor – the NDDC.
Their scholarship has not been funded at all, for two years now, while other students in succeeding batches have received remittances from the NDDC.
It would be recalled that the students ptotested in September where they displayed their scholarship award letter to prove that they were not “hirelings masquerading as the Commission’s scholars” as alleged by the NDDC management.
However, the Interim Management Committee of the NDDC on Friday said in a statement that it would pay the outstanding scholars’ claims within a week.
The statement signed by the Director, Corporate Affairs, Charles Odili, said the acting Executive Director Projects, NDDC, Dr Cairo Ojougboh, was in London on September 17, 2020, with relevant officers of the commission to carry out physical verification, monitoring and evaluation of legitimate students on the scholarship.
“Having concluded the verification, which involved the registration of all scholars and the confirmation of their claims with the various universities, payment of the outstanding fees are to commence immediately,” the statement read in part.
