By Akinwale Kasali
It took the disgrace of Nigeria in London, by protesting students on scholarship on the bill of the scandal-ridden Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, for the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, to react to the shame the NDDC the leadership of the NDDC exposed the country to.
For weeks, the students, in the scholarship bill of the Commission, have been crying over their abandonment. Their fees remain unpaid. Their allowances too. They have been reduced to beggars, with many of them doing extremely menial jobs and sleeping at Railway Stations. They appealed. They called on their President, the country, everybody. They were ignored. The only lonely voice in the wilderness was Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Chief Executive Officer of the Commission in charge of Nigerians in the Diaspora. Her appeals were in vain.
Everybody ignored them while the NDDC officials fed fat, recklessly spending hundreds of billions of Naira on selves.
But on Monday, the hungry, angry and frustrated students had had enough. They took to the streets, and protested what they have been reduced to in front of the Nigeria High Commission, in London.
That was when Mr President took notice.
Disturbed by the protest, President Buhari has now ordered the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio and the NDDC, to immediately pay the School fees and stipends of the Scholarship Students.
The order came barely 24 hours after the public protest by the abandoned students.
This was contained in a statement titled NDDC invites President Buhari to Commission Signature Project and signed by the NDDC Director, Corporate Affairs, Charles Odili, on Tuesday.
Odili said Buhari conveyed the directive on the fate of the students, to the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio.
The statement quoted Odili as saying, “Under the Commission’s finance protocol, only the Executive Director (Finance) and the Executive Director (Projects) can sign for the release of funds from the Commission’s domiciliary accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
“With the death of Chief Etang, the remittance had to await the appointment of a new EDFA. Senator Akpabio, the Honourable Minister, said President Buhari who has been briefed on the protest by students at the Nigerian High Commission in London, has ordered that all stops be pulled to pay the students by the end of this week. We expect a new EDFA to be appointed this week. As soon as that is done, they would all be paid.”
The scholarship beneficiaries said the NDDC had stopped paying their tuition and upkeep allowances for months.
The protest, which held in London, was posted on the protesting scholars’ Twitter handle, @2019Nddc.
They also complained that they risked being deported from the United Kingdom where they are schooling.
They lamented that their school fees and maintenance funds had not been paid one year after they were awarded scholarships. Etang died just a couple of months ago.
During the protest, the aggrieved scholars displayed placards with various inscriptions.
Some of the inscriptions read ‘NDDC has failed us’, ‘we have been thrown out of school’, ‘we risk deportation’, ‘must we protest to get paid, and ‘scholarship not suffership’.
While some of the protesters were seen sitting on the floor, others held the placards standing.
In a video of the protest shared online, the protesters insisted on speaking with the President Muhammadu Buhari or the Minister of the NDDC, Godswill Akpabio.
