The North West Development Commission (NWDC) has officially cancelled its foreign scholarship application scheme.
The commission had, last week, announced the opening of the applications for 2025/2026 undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships at universities in India, Malaysia, Canada, China and Indonesia.
The applications are for students in Engineering, Medical Sciences, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Education.
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This is coming amidst federal government’s announcement to suspend Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) programme for five years, as announced by the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa.
However, the announcement of the scheme comes under heavy criticism with many claiming it’s a misplaced priority.
Nafiu Maharazu Tsiga in a post on Facebook said; “Scholarship is not even the priority of Northwest. How many thousands of children today lost access to even basic education? How many Thousands of primary schools are dilapidated? How many Secondary Schools are dilapidated? Functioning Primary Health Centres are Countable in the North West.
“Please NWDC should set a Priority for the people of Northwest. Overseas scholarship is not a solution to our problems. It is only a hidden way of siphoning Resources.”
Similarly, Didi Usman on Facebook said; “Instead of all this scam scholarships let them focus on basic education, primary education throughout the whole regions. Let them establish school where they didn’t exist before.”
Comrade Elrufai Ahmad wrote; ‘You see how the dollar is going up, and now many politicians are finding it difficult to send their children abroad for studies. This is just a channel or a way for these politicians to sponsor their children to go study outside and find jobs there at the end of their programs, and then later, when the parents are about to retire or pass on, they call upon these children to come and take over their political positions. This thing won’t be beneficial to our poor citizens; even if it will be, it won’t benefit more than 10% of them.”
Amid the criticism, some board members of the commission denied that the policy was discussed at any of their meetings, DailyTrust reports.
A member of the board of the commission said they were not aware of the scholarship programme.
He said the programme was never discussed at any meeting.
He alleged “external influence in crafting and releasing the announcement without following due process.”
Speaking on the issue, the chairman of the commission’s board, Lawal Samaila Abdullahi, described the announcement of the scholarship application as fake.
He said it was never discussed in any of their meetings.
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He said: “The announcement is fake. I know other members are protesting about it, but I cannot say exactly what happened because we haven’t deliberated it. But have summoned a board meeting this Thursday to discuss the issue.”