By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
Apparently to avoid bickering over its policy, the Presidential Amnesty Office has adopted measures to stop the contentious and controversial verification of students under its Scholarship Programme.
This cheering news was dropped Wednesday by the Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Col. Milland Dikio.
He said in a statement made available to journalists on Wednesday that students verification should be a simple administrative procedure.
According to the statement signed by the Director of Information, Mrs Florence Dibiaezue-Eke, the new Amnesty boss has thus directed the relevant departments especially the Reintegration Department to adopt measures to immediately address the recurring issues affecting students verification.
She said he has also instructed the supervising departments to direct affected students to swear to an affidavit to affirm their identities, and courses of study in their respective institutions.
Giving further directives, The Amnesty boss said Heads of Departments or Deans of Faculties would be required to endorse the affidavits with their signatures and stamps for authentication purposes.
Col. Dikio also said that copies of the completed documents should be forwarded by email to the Reintegration Department and his office to conclude the matter timely while hinting that a verification team from the office would still be dispatched when the conditions are right to conduct a physical verification exercise.
He used the medium to warn that punitive actions will be taken against any student or institution found to have supplied false information.
He explained that his office had to take the above measures to prevent genuine students from needless suffering.
Col. Dikio advised the students who claimed they could not go for the verification exercise to avail themselves of the above measures without delay.
He urged the students to cooperate with the management to ensure that the issues are resolved in a seamless manner.
