By Gloria Emmanuel The Federal Government Monday awarded scholarship awards to 104 first class students under the Presidential Special Scholarship Scheme for Innovation and Development (PRESSID).
The awards will enable the recipients study in the top 25 universities in the world up to Masters and PhD level.
The PRESSID which was introduced by Mr President and for the 2nd year running is meant to identify young Nigerians purely on merit, to be awarded scholarships by the federal government as part of efforts to achieve the goals of vision 20:2020 and the transformation agenda of the current administration.
This year’s scholarship award did not follow federal character as the beneficiaries were purely on merit and represented only 16 out of the 36 states of the federation.
Presenting the award in Abuja, the supervising Minister of Education, Barr Nyesom Wike tasked the opposition party, All Progressive Congress (APC) to emulate the leadership of the present administration which he said believes on merit rather than favouritism.
Wike noted that through the presidential scholarship initiative, the federal government plans to develop a critical mass of professionals who would serve as catalysts of change agents of scientific and technological advancement, as well as sustainable economic development.
This he said would be achieved through the sponsorship of outstanding students for postgraduate studies in the top 25 universities in the world.
The 2014/2015 awardees who were between the ages of 22-25 were 28 females and 76 males and was an improvement of last year when the awardees were 20 females and 81 males.
The minister noted that the seed the country is sowing via the scholarship will yield tremendous benefit for the federal republic of Nigeria in the nearest future.
According to him, “for the first in Nigeria, we have a programme whose selection process is based purely on merit. Mr President’s instruction was very clear from day one- that merit, and merit only, be the criterion for selecting the awardees. Consequently, the implementation committee ensured that following the advertorial in the papers, only candidates with first class degrees in the advertised disciplines were short-listed for aptitude test, irrespective of where they come from, gender or any other criteria.
“Out of the about 2,000 applicants that registered on the electronic portal developed for the scheme, 629 were invited for a computer-based test.
“It is important to note that all the 629 short-listed candidates performed very well but it is unfortunate that we could not award the scholarship to all of them because of cost. Thus only the top 104 candidates made this year’s list”.
Wike pointed out that “even Mr President’s state of origin (Bayelsa) was not represented”; saying Nigerians must learn that merit should supersede federal character in some decisions if this country must develop.
While congratulating the 104 awardees, he advised them to be God fearing, humble; law abiding and to show exemplary behaviour at all times because they will be flying the flag of the country in the course of their studies.
Wike however warned that the federal government will not hesitate to withdraw the scholarship if at any point it discovered any act of misconduct in them.
The scholarship scope covers their tuition, accommodation & heating, return flight tickets, living expenses and local travels.
Meanwhile, the House of Representative committee on education has ordered the stoppage of the Presidential Special Scholarship for Innovation and Development over what they described as breach of federal character principles.
Suleiman said that the distribution was in breach of Section 14 and 17 of the 1999 Constitution because the selection did not reflect federal character, equality and justice.
The distributions are: Abia, four; Akwa Ibom, three; Benue, one; Ekiti, five; Kwara, one; Ogun, 17; and Osun, 15.Others are: Anambra, seven; Delta, nine; Edo, four; Enugu, seven; Imo, seven; Kogi, three; Lagos, five; Oyo, seven; and Rivers, four while the remaining 20 states had no beneficiaries.
Out of the 104 candidates, 20 will be studying medical science, 42 for Information Technology/Mechanical Engineering, 14 for Chemical Engineering, 9 for Mechanical Engineering; 8 for Civil Engineering, 7 for Economics; 2 for Physics while 2 will be going for Petroleum Engineering.
