Zashaya Awele leapt for joy when she got a scholarship from the Niger Delta Development Commission in August 2019 for a master’s degree at a London university in the United Kingdom. But one year after, her joy has turned into anxiety, worry, and depression. The reasons for her condition are quite enormous.
Like other scholars, when she got the scholarship, the commission promised to pay them a N500,000 take-off grant to process their visas and procure flight tickets to their destination countries. Apart from the take-off grant, the commission was also supposed to pay them $30,000 (N11.6m), which covered their tuition fees and living expenses.
A year after, Awele has yet to receive the grant to pay her tuition fees. In fact, the NDDC did not pay the N500,000 take-off grant until April 2020 – eight months after the scholarship was awarded.
Awele, a Delta State indigene who worked at a private clinic in Abuja until she got the scholarship, had to sell off some of her properties and borrow money to raise funds for her travel to the UK. She eventually got to school in October 2019.
“I waited for two months expecting to get the take-off grant. When it was not forthcoming and I couldn’t wait, I had to raise funds to travel to the UK. We were paid the take-off grant just about four months ago. However, we have yet to get the tuition fees,” she told our correspondent.
The non-payment of her tuition fees a year after securing the scholarship was what was eating up Awele as the consequences were wide-ranging, including de-registration by the school and deportation by the UK Home Office.
She said, “There are some of us who have been de-registered and what it means is that all the academic work that we’ve been doing for a year is null and void. The implication is that the school could say we are no longer their students and report us to the Home Office and throw us out of the country because we reneged on our agreement with them.
“Right now, I can’t read or concentrate on my studies; I’m constantly thinking, ‘When am I going to pay my tuition fees? How am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to eat?’ At this point, I’m scared, devastated, worried, and depressed. I can’t even work on my project. I’m constantly thinking, I’m really in a bad state.”
Coupled with the non-payment of her tuition fees, Awele also has no job to cater to her basic needs, which makes her feel more frustrated and depressed.
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