FG pays Nigerians on scholarship abroad

THE Federal Government has confirmed that hundreds of Nigerian students on scholarship in the United Kingdom and Russia have been paid through their embassies.

Some of the scholars, particularly students in Russia, have raised concerns about their plight over non-payment of their monthly stipends since January, 2020.

The students are in the countries under the Bilateral Education Agreement Scholarship Awards being facilitated by the Federal Scholarship Board.

Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, said payment has been paid for the affected students abroad through their various embassies. He made this known at the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 news briefing in Abuja.

He noted that the Nigeria Embassy in UK had confirmed receipt of payment and is subsequently crediting the accounts of the students, saying similar confirmation is awaited from Russia.

The minister had two weeks ago apologised to all the students on scholarship abroad who had not received their money. He had attributed the delay in payment of the monthly stipends to the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19), which led to the suspension of action on payment of the money to the beneficiary scholars by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

But during the daily news briefing on Monday in Abuja, Nwajiuba while providing update on the status of the payment said he could confirm to the audience that the payment had been effected by the CBN to the students through their embassies.

He said: “We have just confirmed this afternoon that UK has gotten the money and students have confirmed scholarship has been paid to them. I don’t know if Russia has begun disbursing. They may have started because we only got confirmation from the schools and not from students.”

The minister added that UK and Russia were in the same batch that was done last week by the Central Bank of Nigeria, and that he was optimistic that students in Russia would get their payment within the week.

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