Four years after, Niger yet to fulfil scholarship promise for int’l debate winners

 In October 14, 2017, the governor of Niger State, Abubakar Sani Bello, announced scholarships to four secondary school students from the state, who represented Nigeria at the 2017 United Nations Heart of Europe International Debating Tournament, which was held in July of that year at Olomouc, Czech Republic. The students – Aminu Abdullahi Katuna, Aliyu […]

 In October 14, 2017, the governor of Niger State, Abubakar Sani Bello, announced scholarships to four secondary school students from the state, who represented Nigeria at the 2017 United Nations Heart of Europe International Debating Tournament, which was held in July of that year at Olomouc, Czech Republic.

The students – Aminu Abdullahi Katuna, Aliyu Bala Ibrahim and Kingsley Marvel Omoloja from Government Secondary School, Minna, now Father O’Connell Science College, and Shamsiyya Usman from Government Girls’ College, Kontagora—emerged overall best from Africa and first in the tournament.

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The governor announced the scholarships when the victorious students, led by national officials of the Presidential Debate, presented the laurel to him in the Government House, Minna, the state capital.

The announcement was consequently confirmed in a statement by the then chief press secretary to the governor, Jibrin Baba Ndace in October 14, 2017. In the statement, he noted that the governor was happy with the performance of the students; hence the gesture was to encourage them in their future academic endeavours.

Ndace quoted the governor as saying, “Your remarkable effort has brought the state a global recognition. You have indeed made the state proud. My desire for you is to attain greater heights. That is why the state is offering four of you scholarships to enable you pursue your academic desire up to university level.”

The governor, who commended the effort of the students, as well as the committee in charge of the competition, also announced a reward N50,000 for each of the four students and each member of the committee. But barely six years after the event, when the students are expected to have graduated from various universities, the scholarship offer has not materialised.

Daily Trust Saturday learnt that students from Kaduna State, who could not go beyond the national stage of the competition, were also offered scholarships, and they have graduated from universities in Sudan and Cuba.

The students also told Daily Trust Saturday that each of them was given N30,000 by officials of the State Universal Basic Education Board and not N50,000 as announced by the governor.  

Investigation by Daily Trust Saturday also showed that the students were promised a laptop each by the wife of the governor, Dr Amina Abubakar Bello following a request by the team leader, Aminu Abdullahi Katuna at a dinner organised in their honour by the State Universal Basic Education Board in Minna in 2017. However, the students are yet to enjoy the offer, and no reason has been given for the delay.

Further enquiries further revealed that while two of the students, Aminu Abdullahi Katuna and Aliyu Bala Ibrahim, were able to secure admission to read Urban and Regional Planning and Chemical Engineering respectively at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kingsley Marvel Omoloja, has been in Lagos making efforts to survive.

Omoloja told our correspondent on telephone that he had written the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) three times and scored good marks but could not pursue his career due to financial constraint and the inability to secure admission to read Mechanical Engineering, while Shamsiya Usman, the captain of the team, whose dream was to read Medicine and Surgery, resorted to a diploma programme in the Niger State College of Health Technology, Minna because her parents could not afford to foot her university bills.  

Angered by the level of publicity given to the scholarships offered by the Niger State Government, both on the mainstream media and the social media, the students took the matter to the social media.  

They said that instead of doing the needful, some government officials responded with name calling, saying that they were over-flogging the issue.  

Omoloja said that out of frustration, he decided to follow a friend to Lagos to make ends meet after he lost his guardian, adding that his father did not plan to sponsor him beyond secondary school.  

He said, “I wrote the UTME in 2018 and scored 202. I applied to read Mechanical Engineering in the Kwara State University (KWASU) and got admission, but because the fee was very high, my dad couldn’t pay.

“In 2019, I wrote another UTME and applied to study in the University of Abuja. I scored 198 but did not get admission. In 2020 also, I wrote the exam, but unfortunately, I did not make it.”

He also applied to study in Ukraine and was given admission, hoping to get a positive response from the state government, but there was none. 

“I am currently struggling to make ends meet in Lagos. I am a good web developer. Currently, I teach in a private school, with my secondary certificate. It is important for me to further my education, but I need to survive first. And surviving here in Lagos is not easy., he said.  

Also, Shamsiyya Usman told Daily Trust Saturday that several letters of appeal were written to various stakeholders, including the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Ministry of Education, SUBEB, State Scholarship Board and the Niger State Government House but their efforts did not yield the desired result.  

“In 2020, one of us, Aliyu, took the matter to Twitter. It was also shared on Facebook, but instead of responding positively, some government officials started attacking us,” Shamsiyya said.  

Another student, Aliyu Bala Ibrahim, said he had wanted to pursue a career in software engineering, a course he believes is not available in Nigerian universities, but the failure of the Niger State Government to fulfill his promise ruined his dream.

On the laptop promised by the wife of the governor, Ibrahim said, “In 2020, we met the wife of the governor in her office and she honoured us. We told her that the scholarship had not been implemented, neither were the laptops she promised given to us. She asked why, saying she had delivered the laptops to the State Universal Basic Education Board. She called the SUBEB chairman in our presence and told us to go there.

“The SUBEB called us that same day and we went to see the chairman, Dr Isah Adamu. He was not the chairman when the laptops were promised, so he asked SUBEB officials who coordinated the programme and they told him that the laptops were for the debating team, not individual students.

 “On the scholarship, the SUBEB chairman asked why we needed to study abroad. He promised to call us, and that we should tell the wife of the governor that we would be given the laptops. He gave each of us N5,000 and told us to go.”  

When contacted, the wife of the governor, who spoke through her chief press secretary, Rabi Sarkin Bello, said the laptops were delivered to the SUBEB for onward presentation to the students on the day the promise was made.  

The immediate past chairman of the SUBEB, Dr Isah Adamu, confirmed to Daily Trust Saturday that the Board received three laptops from the wife of the governor, but said he could not comment further on the issue because he had not assumed office when the event took place. He said that when he was appointed the chairman of the Board in 2019, the laptops were already put to use; and he could not give the boys old laptops when the wife of the governor called him on the matter.

The deputy director, Social Mobilisation, Hajiya Zarah Ibrahim, who was the then desk officer, Schools Debate in the SUBEB, refuted the claim that the students were given N5,000 each in place of the laptops. She said the money was to offset their transportation expenses.

She, however, said the former SUBEB chairman promised to get them new laptops but could not fulfill the promise until he was removed from office recently.

Hajiya Zarah further told Daily Trust Saturday that the laptops were donated to the Debate Club in SUBEB and not individual students. She said the team leader, Aminu, requested for the laptops for the club.

“He requested for the laptops on our behalf from the wife of the governor. She brought three laptops to the club and it was collected by the then executive chairman. The laptops were kept in the School’s Debate Club Department for use,” she said.

On the issue of scholarship, Zarah said two different reminders had so far been written to the governor since 2017. She exonerated the SUBEB as the state coordinating agency from the failure of the government to live up to its promise.  

Though the Captain of the team, Shamsiyya Usman said the governor did not specify if the scholarship offer was to study in  a foreign or Nigerian University. She said in the course of their follow up to the Niger State Scholarship Board, they were told that the state had stopped foreign scholarship offers except for professional courses, including medicine.  

“That gave us hope to go for studies abroad because all of us had it in mind to study health-related courses. I want to study medicine and surgery.”  

The chief press secretary to the governor, Mary Noel-Berje, told Daily Trust Saturday that her principal recently gave directive to the appropriate agencies to facilitate the implementation of the scholarship offer.  

“We were able to present this issue and the governor has given a directive. Work is in progress to address the issue. It has already been discussed at a forum. They will resolve it very soon,” she said.