‘Scrap N100bn foreign scholarships’

Posted by admin Headlines Sunday, April 19th, 2015

Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd)

The Commonwealth Youth Council has urged the President-elect, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to abolish foreign scholarships in the country after he assumes office on May 29.

In a statement issued by the CYC chairperson, Ahmed Adamu, in London on Saturday, the council said close to N100bn is spent on foreign scholarships annually by the Federal Government.

According to Adamu, who is also an economic expert, the expenditure had resulted in the abuse of the naira and triggered devaluation of the currency.

He said, “This figure is extremely higher when adding the cost of other self-sponsored foreign education programmes and I am using this medium to call on the Nigerian President-elect to consider this as one of the immediate policies he will adopt in the first 100 days in office.

“Nigerians and other internationals studying in United Kingdom contribute 2.3 per cent to Britain’s Gross Domestic Product growth and their patronages contribute 2.6 per cent to the overall UK employment. How different are foreign universities from Nigerian universities?

“We may talk about access to energy, Information Technology, resources, facilities, conducive atmosphere and efficiency, but all these can be provided in all Nigerian universities with the savings that will eventuate from abolishing foreign scholarships. If you divide N100 billion by the number of federal universities, you will see that each university will get N2.5 billion a year.”

-Punch

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