By Sunday John
Lafia – The Nasarawa State Government says it has sponsored 19 medical and engineering students who are indigenes of the state in UK and Ukraine universities.
Mr Suleiman Abdulwahib, the Executive Secretary of Nasarawa State Scholarship Board disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lafia.
Abdulwahib said that over N160 million was spent on foreign scholarship to 16 indigenes of the state who studied medicine and engineering courses in Ukraine from 2007 to 2012.
He added the government had also spent over N33 million on three indigenes who did their post graduate programmes in UK from 2015 to 2016.
He explained that although presently, the state did not have any foreign students, it was working out modalities to award scholarships to indigenes to study in foreign countries.
He said that the essence was to ensure that the government trained the needed manpower that would add to the development of the state.
On the settlement of scholarships for students in Nigeria for the 2016/2017 academic session, Wahib said that the board had recently paid N100 million to the first batch.
He said that it was awaiting the release of more money to pay the remaining students.
He therefore assured all indigenes of the state studying in various institutions to remain calm as the government was working seriously to settle those yet to be paid to relieve their parents of the burden.
Mr Umar Ibrahim, the President, Nasarawa State Students Association (NASSA) also appealed to the Nasarawa State government to release the remaining balance of scholarship.
He urged the government to take the welfare of students seriously to alleviate their suffering.