By Sam Kayode
The Muhammadu Indimi Foundation has sponsored over 20 students in the last academic session alone, in Borno state, executive secretary of the state scholarship board Bala Isa, has said.
He told this reporter in an exclusive interview recently in Maiduguri that paying school fees and more were exactly what the Muhammadu Indimi Foundation’s scholarship was about.
On challenges he has been encountering in the agency, he said that a lot of students were their own albatross because they do not listen or follow instructions when applying for the grants.
“And when that happens and they end up loosing the scholarship, they begin to blame the agency for denying them after feeding the computer with the wrong information.
“imagine, you ask them for identification, students will be putting wrong school identity numbers, JAMB numbers and making many of such mistakes in the cafe, yet they want to be processed.
“Imagine a situation in which the JAMB number of a student becomes identity card number for that student who wants to read law, social management, paramedics, science lab technology and veterinary studies. How do you process that?” he wondered aloud.
To Bala, young students should move away from these little problems if they really want the scholarships because the entire process has been computerised to meet the expectations of the contemporary society.
He said that more than 15,000 students are on state government scholarship as at 2023 adding that this has helped a lot of the pending students because some were able to receive complete payment while others received only half.
“The Governor has been giving up to 300k to law students, 19 of them still studying while 56 of them were sponsored in the last session.
Bala hinted that Governor Babagana Zulum himself handles foreign students directly to ensure transparency in the process vis a vis the budgetary provision of each session.
On foreign students whose studies became stranded inside the Sudanese war, he said Bayero University Kano (BUK), has taken some while some were taken to other places like Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria adding that procedure was created for them to complete their studies accordingly.
