A CLARION CALL ON GOVERNOR NYESON WIKE TO ADDRESS THE PLIGHT OF RIVERS STATE STUDENTS STUDYING ABROAD ON SCHOLARSHIPS.
The hardship and uncertainty that have befallen Rivers State students sent abroad on scholarship by the Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi administration, especially the 16 Rivers state final year medical students at the All Saints University in Saint Vincent and Grenadines, as a result of the failure of the Governor Wike led government to pay their tuition fees, is a sad tale that has left a very sour taste in the mouth.
The story is that the 16 students who are beneficiaries of the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency Scholarship (RSSDA) scheme have been suspended from medical school two months to their graduation and are now stranded as a result of the inability of the Rivers state government to pay their outstanding tuition fees and living allowance running into thousands of dollars.
More worrisome is the speculation that the Rivers State government may have reneged on the original agreement that secured the admission for the students and has not paid their upkeep allowance and tuition fees, since November 2014, which comes down to approximately 2 years and 11 months, to date.
As a result of this, all the 16 students have now been reportedly suspended from school since September, 2016, two months to their scheduled graduation date, which was supposed to have been in November 2016 and are now stranded and abandoned in the island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Most pathetic is the complaint that ever since their suspension, they have been barred from concluding their remaining elective clinical rotations and with the non -paymet of their upkeep allowances, they have been exposed to untold hardship and suffering.
Feeding has become very difficult as they now have to rely on the charities of friends and school colleagues and most of them have been thrown out of their accommodations by their landlords due to non-payment of rent, with the threat of legal action hanging over their heads in order to recover the outstanding rent.
If this gory scenario of harship and suffering by our bona fide Rivers State students studying abroad is true, then the Rivers state government, through the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency, which negotiated the overseas traning, has done a great disservice and injustice to our students overseas.
It is even more disheartening to note that while the Rivers state government had actually written to the school, pleading for understanding on the grounds that some changes had been made to the scheme, Mr Lawrence Pepple, the Executive Director/CEO of the RSSDA, had suddenly resigned his position, citing alleged leadership vagueness on critical administrative policies, as some of the unbearable conditions that compelled his decision to quit, thus creating a horrible and impending worsening of the hardship and suffering which these innocent Rivers children would face in the coming months.
The real tragedy for these hapless students however, is that not only did the former Commissioner for Agriculture, Onemin Jack, in December 2015, inform parents of children under the RSSDA overseas scholarship programme that only final-year students would complete their programmes abroad, with the rest to continue their studies in Nigeria, the agency even reneged on that agreement to see the final year students through and the poisonous icing was put on the bitter cake for the students, when Governor Nyesom Wike himself, speaking on national television, openly denied the students by claiming that the RSSDA overseas scholarship beneficiaries were not Rivers State indigenes and that they were children of his political opponents.
We have even been authoritatively informed that Apart from the 16 RSSDA sponsored final year medical students stranded at the All Saints University, St. Vincent Grenadines, there are also other final year stranded students in fields such as Engineering, Law, Science, ICT and other disciplines, scattered in various schools in India, Europe, Canada, UK and the Caribbean.
We recall quite vividly that the RSSDA was instituted by the visionary leadership of His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, when he introduced the overseas scholarship scheme in critical areas such as Medicine and allied courses, to deserving Rivers state children and mandated the RSSDA to secure admissions for the successful students in universities overseas.
The RSSDA was equally mandated to perfect a bilateral agreement with the students and their host institutions to ensure that no stone was left unturned in the effort and visionary initiative to give our children the best education deserving of their excellent and exceptional talents and brialliance.
However, the continued politicization and grandstanding by the state government in addressing the plight of these students, since the Wike-led administration came on board, is a serious matter that calls for concern and demands that all well meaning Rivers men and women should rise and lend their voices to this clarion call to prevail on the Rivers state government to, as a matter of urgency, come to the aid of these suffering children and bring a final closure to this sordid chapter in the lives of the students and the history of our dear state.
Like we have always advocated, Education is the best legacy we can bequeath to our children and when we have opportunities like these to perform and deliver this very critical life moulding service to our children, we should do everything possible to ensure that we do not disappoint them and ruin the future of our children, who are just young people trying to better their lives and become productive members of society.
The excuse being put forward by the state government that Rivers state experienced an economic downturn which affected revenue generation and as such, the students must continue to suffer, pales into lame insignificance and sheer demagouery, when placed against the backdrop of some of the recent activities of the government with other foreign interests.
Our appeal and indeed those of discerning and well meaning Rivers people who feel as strongly as we do in this matter, is for Mr. Nyesom Wike, as a father and the man now at the helm of affairs in Rivers state, to reconsider his seemingly rigid position on the plight of the stranded medical students and address the matter satisfactorily and without any prejudice whatsoever.
It is a political and leadership truism that a commitment made by one government should be a liability or responsibility of the succeding government and in this instance, it is the future of our children who are now suffering humiliation, stress and unimaginable trauma.
We feel deeply saddened to see and hear that Rivers children are suffering and that all the years and resources which had been expended on this laudable project will now be wasted. The image and reputation of Rivers state is in doldrums, not only in the comity of Nigerian states where our state is now used as the butt of comparative jokes, but indeed in the eyes of the global community who, citing the resources available to us and indeed reflecting on some of the recent initiatives embarked on by the state government, ostensibly on the same agenda of youth development, will now refer to our dear state as a crude example of misplaced priorities, as a result of this unsavory development
Our children deserve better, both at home and most especially abroad. We must safeguard their future, otherwise history and posterity will not judge us kindly.
Please Mr. Governor, help our children.
SOTONYE IJUYE-DAGOGO
GROUP MEDIA DIRECTOR
GRA
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