The All progressives Congress in Bayelsa state has expressed serious concern over negligence of scholarships students in diaspora by the Restoration administration led by Governor Henry Seriake Dickson over the past nine months. The All progressives congress, Bayelsa chapter is hereby calling on all well meaning Bayelsans to lend charitable supports to our children in this impoverished situation. On our own part, we are doing our best reaching out gradually to many, but the situation is very critical and demands immediate government attention.
From our investigations and recent complains, we have been able to gather that most of our students on scholarships by the current administration are in a deep state of suffering, our reports uncovered that the Bayelsa State Scholarship beneficiaries under Governor Henry Seriake Dickson are yet to receive their monthly stipends for the past nine (9) months neither has their schools fees been paid to their respective institutions. As a matter of fact, some of these students have been evicted out of school activities and others from their accommodations due to non payment.
Right now, some schools in the United Kingdom had blacklisted Bayelsa State sponsorships and no longer accept any from the state, a typical example is Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom and few others.
We have also been reliably informed that some universities are making attempts to write to the United kingdom Border and Immigration department never to grant Visa to students under Bayelsa state sponsorship.
Also, information available has indicated that some of the students are being threatened with legal actions, those that concluded their programs have been denied graduation because their fees are not paid. Our reports also revealed that a particular PhD Student in an Australian University had been shown his way out.
This problem is not just unique to United Kingdom but it is the same with those in Russia and some in the United State. It is quite frustrating, unfortunate and ill that a Governor known as the “talk na do” “countri man” would make empty promises living people in despair, this is a governor who has declared emergency in the education sector, but deliberately neglecting the future leaders and hope of our dear state to languish and die of negligence, hunger and frustration.
We are hereby appealing to the restoration government to live up to its expectation and pay up it’s debts. This situation has tainted the image of our state and embarrassing the ijaw nation to the rest of the world, we sincerely hope that by this publication, the attention of the federal government would be drawn to this predicament and hope will be restored.
Hon Fortune Panebi
State publicity secretary,
APC Bayelsa chapter.
