A postgraduate scholarship awardee in Borno State has expressed worry on the alleged inadequate disbursement of scholarship funds by officials coordinating of the scholarship.
The awardee made the lamentation in an open letter he addressed to the state governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, and seen by this reporter.
The awardee who claimed annonimity in the letter, alleged that some inappropriate practices in the scholarship program is sabotaging the effort of the state governor in his strive to support education in the state.
He said while some of the awardees have gotten their scholarship, others, including himself were sidelined without proper explanations by managers of the funds.
Highlighting the situation, he said the action of the managers is affecting their studies and needs urgent attention and intervention from Gov. Zulum.
See full text of the letter below:
STEM/NON-STEM POSTGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIP DICTOTHOMY: AN URGENT APPEAL TO PROFESSOR BABAGANA UMARA ZULUM
Your Excellency Sir,
We hope this message finds you in well and in excellent health. We are using this medium to express our grievances, as we have exhausted all available channels to reach you and inform you of our concerns regarding the disbursement of scholarship to successfully awardees.
Firstly, it is important to acknowledge the giant stride of your government for ensuring access to quality education and educational support for postgraduate students who are indigent of Borno State.
It is commendable that under your guidance and initiatives, for the first time, postgraduate scholarship (local and foreign) for indigenes of Borno State was initiated and awarded at an unprecedented scale as a new benchmark for educational excellence in the state.
Secondly, Your Excellency may recall that on June 7, 2024, Borno State Government through the State Scholarship Board awarded the sum of 4.5 billion naira to 524 Borno postgraduate students which was widely reported and commended.
The scholarship tagged: Postgraduate Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), was purposely meant for students from the Sciences.
However, from the application, screening and award stages, the committee included many non-STEM applicants as part of the magnanimity of your desire to promote non-STEM education also.
The outcome of the thorough screening exercise which took place at the Scholarship Board certified also included both STEM and non-STEM applicants.
In fact, all applicants, including non-STEM applicants were sent emails and text messages by the Scholarship Board inviting them for the award and the ceremonial presentation of the cheque at the Government House.
Subsequently, all applicants were added to a WhatsApp platform to facilitate and coordinate the disbursement. Your Excellency Sir, the five hundred and twenty-four (524) awardees to whom you graciously disbursed the fund as presented to you by the Committee included the STEM and non-STEM.
Sadly, and unexpectedly, the nonSTEM awardees were excluded at the level of disbursement when their hopes were high and their mouths filled with your praises.
Your Excellency may wish to note that local STEM awardees for M.sc and Ph.D. have since received their stipends after a week. However, the local non-STEM members are yet to receive a kobo. In fact, the WhatsApp group initially created was renamed as STEM and all non-STEM were ejected. This sad development, has further compounded the post-graduate academic stress and subjected many of us to trauma. Additionally, these were done without any explanation from the committee.
Your Excellency Sir, the continuous withholding of our stipend by the committee would affect our studies negatively. As someone who understand the postgraduate struggle, Your Excellency knows that students often go through difficulties with tuition fees, accommodation, transport and upkeep due to absence of financial and psychological safety of which this award would have averted many of them for the non-STEM like their STEM counterpart.
While new sessions have commenced or about to commence in other Universities, it is appropriate to bring this to notice to the Nigerian Number Governor who has listening ears, who we believe, is unaware of this sad development against the non-STEM postgraduate students.
We want to collectively re-iterate that education is an essential tool for empowerment and growth of any society, and it is disheartening to encounter such deliberately created man-made bottlenecks. All efforts to reach the Scholarship Board and other stakeholders in this regard did not yield any positive result.
In the light of the above, we want to respectfully appeal to our father, leader and humbly request your immediate intervention on this matter to fast-track the disbursement of our awards. We remain optimistic that, will stand with us in this trying moment.
Thank you in anticipation of your positive response.
Yours faithfully,
Non-STEM Postgraduate Scholarship Awardees
(Indigenes of Borno State)
