A student recipient of the scholarship of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has reacted to the claim of the NDDC Executive Director of Project, Cairo Ojougboh, that the Commission has 1,000 students overseas and do visit them from time to time to be sure that NDDC’s money is not being wasted.
“We have over 1,000 students overseas; so when they are graduating and from time to time as the executive, you have to visit the students and discuss with the universities to know that the money the NDDC is paying is not being wasted, and that is what these things are meant for.” Ojougboh said

Okukayode Olugbemi, a Master of Laws Student of International Commercial Law at University of Aberdeen faulted the statement of Johnson. He said the Commission has failed “vehemently” to pay the scholarship fees of over 200 students abandoned at his University and other parts of the world.

“The scholarship was awarded in July, 2019; scholars were meant to pay the sum of N500, 000 to assist with visa and ticket costs. That money was not paid until so much noise on social media in April 2020. This means that most of the scholars in the United Kingdom at the moment had to use personal funds, sums and loans from banks and institutions to be able to put themselves through to the United Kingdom.

“Apart from that, the scholarship sum of 30, 000 US Dollars which was supposed to cover the tuition and the living costs of scholars have not been paid.” Olugbemi recounted

He said some scholars resumed in September 2019 and are currently finalizing their dissertations while others resumed in January 2020 and are currently preparing to complete their studies in December, 2020

He lamented that “about 7 to 10 months of studies have gone on without tuition being paid. Not only that the school is frustrated, the NDDC has refused to acknowledge or respond to any of their emails. They are tired and have started transferring tuition debt to students.”

He said the NDDC has continued to pay lip service to the plight of their scholars. He made reference to the announcement of the NDDC Director of projects that the Commission allocated monies to themselves regarding the graduation of the scholars

“The fundamental question is how do you attend the graduation ceremony of the scholars you have not paid their tuition?” Olugbemi asked

He was also curious as to why NDDC would think of attending graduation of scholars whom they have not had any official communication with since their resumption in September 2019 and January 2020 respectively.

He said in order to take care of themselves and pay outstanding bills, the scholars had to endanger themselves by working at care homes and one of them contracted coronavirus in the process in May, 2020 and had to self-isolate.

He said the Commission has severally made representations to the public suggesting that the scholars are well taken care of. “this is far from the truth. At the moment, today’s date is 13th July, 2020 where I am making this video. No scholar has received tuition, no scholar has received maintenance fees. And this is a terrible situation we have found ourselves in. As an individual like me, my school has given me till 28th of July to pay my outstanding tuition and my outstanding accommodation invoices.”

Olugbemi said studentship of many have been suspended pending when the commission will make payment. That the situation is delicate so they didn’t expect it to be politicized even by the National Assembly or by the IMC adding that all they want is payment of outstanding money promised to them upon which they resumed studies in the United Kingdom.

In response to the statement that over one thousand students are on the scholarship of NDDC, he said “we consider that to be incorrect or at best politically motivated. The 2019 students are about 210 and Ph.D students from 2017 to date are only about 300 considering that some are calculated as part of either 2018 and 2019. So there is no reasonable justification that the scholars are about 1000”

He added that most of those from 2016 to 2018 have been paid so “it is politically incorrect and it is even factually incorrect to assume that there are about 1000 students on the NDDC scholarship.”

He objected to them (scholarship recipients) been used as a political tool adding that “all we ask is that we are paid what we are due, and that is, our tuition fees and our maintenance costs.”

Olugbemi said they are available for any interview regarding their situation at the United Kingdom. That they have been pushed to the wall by the Nigerian government.