None provision of N2.4 billion in the 2017 budget is identified to have caused the Federal Scholarship Board (FSB) owing Nigerian scholars in the Diaspora, making the students to be stranded.
Fatima Ahmad, the Director of the board made this known at a special meeting held between the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and representatives of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) responsible for the welfare of Nigerian Students on scholarships abroad.
Ahmad, who noted that in 2015 and 2016, N799.8 million debt was incurred out of which Ñ444.2 million had been paid, leaving a balance of Ñ355.6 million, stating that “the students are now stranded due to non-payment of their living allowances and tuition fees by relevant government agencies.”
The Senate in plenary had mandated the President of the Senate to intervene and know why Nigerian students on scholarships in foreign countries are yet to be paid their scholarship funds.
Saraki at the meeting on Wednesday which was attended by the Senate Leader, Deputy Senate Leader, Chairman Senate Committees on Tertiary Education and TETFUND and other Senators directed the Federal Scholarship Board (FSB) to urgently present a comprehensive report of all Nigerian students on scholarship abroad and their outstanding entitlements to the relevant committees of the Senate to enable the Senate make Appropriations for their settlement.
He assured that the Senate committees after due consideration of the reports would make recommendations to the Senate on how to clear the backlogs through appropriation, and called for a comprehensive review of scholarship policies in the country to save the nation from future embarrassment.
According to Saraki, the meeting was called to enable the leadership of the Senate and heads of relevant agencies put heads together on a matter of pressing concern, which is the welfare of Nigerian students on scholarships who are stranded abroad due to the inability to fulfill the country’s responsibilities to these students, and meet their needs.
“As some of you may know, I was in Russia last month to participate at the 137th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), and I heard first-hand the plight of our students for whom the expected scholarship funding has dried up. The overwhelming feeling on the part of these students is one of abandonment by their motherland,” Saraki said.
“This feeling of abandonment is one that we must move quickly to dissipate, by working urgently to alleviate the difficulties faced by these students,” he stated, adding “We must look for ways to re-establish the pipelines and remove the bottlenecks, so that our students who went abroad with the promise and assurance of scholarship funding, will get their stipends as and when due.”
The Senate President lamented that several brilliant Nigerian students on federal scholarships are languishing abroad due to the inability of the Federal Government to pay its counterpart funding of the scholarships awarded under bilateral agreements with foreign governments.
“Under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) entered into by Nigeria and several foreign governments, some of the host countries have responsibility for part of the upkeep of Nigerian students – while Nigeria must necessarily fulfill her own part. There is a need for the MDAs to look at our responsibility to our students in the different countries, and devise ways of making good on our part of such agreements,” Saraki said.
He remarked: “We must recognise that these students scattered that are currently in dire conditions all over the world, represent a sizable component of the future of Nigeria – her dreams of progress and development. This is another kind of brain drain. This is a brain drain that benefits no one, not even foreign countries. We are not even losing the best of these students to foreign lands – we are in danger of losing them, period. If we don’t rectify this situation – let me put it bluntly – we would be sacrificing their future; and that, is unthinkable.”
Saraki directed the FSB to prepare a comprehensive report on the outstanding allowances and tuition and submit to the education committees to enable the Senate make provision for its settlement in the budget, enjoining the FSB to imbibe the spirit of transparency and federal character in the award of all federal scholarships.
