I spent over N20bn on scholarships, Ganduje replies Gov Yusuf

The immediate past governor of Kano state, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has refuted claims by his successor, Abba Kabir Yusuf, that foreign postgraduate scholarships was scrapped under his (Ganduje) administration.

The former governor said on the contrary, his administration spent “over N20billion on 111,687 indigent students for overseas postgraduate foreign scholarship in 14 countries, five private universities, the Nigerian Law School and other internal universities from June 2015 to March 2023.”

Daily Trust reports that the new governor, Yusuf had last Friday while announcing the “resumption of scholarship scheme for first class graduates to seek postgraduate degrees in domestic and foreign universities” said that “the last scholarship was offered in 2015 by Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s administration”.

But reacting in statement issued through a former commissioner for Information and Internal Affairs in the administration, Muhammad Garba, Ganduje said it was unfortunate that Governor Yusuf was making reference to Kwankwaso’s administration, alleging that the administration in reference “left a burden of about $28 million and over N6 billion respectively” which he said his administration had settled a substantial part of it before exiting office on May 29.

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He explained that the over N20billion his administration spent on foreign postgraduate scholarships covered “tuition fees, upkeep, accommodation, air ticket, among others, was earmarked for students of post graduate foreign scholarship in India, Malaysia, Egypt, Cyprus, China, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, Togo, Ireland, Gambia, Ukraine as well as internal universities.”

“Available records indicate that in addition to the above, the former administration also sponsored 50 lecturers from its two universities and other tertiary institutions for their doctorate degrees in French prestigious universities under a programme jointly carried out between the French and Kano state government,” the statement said

He added that over N600 million was also spent on the joint tuition-free post graduate scholarship between the state government and the French Embassy in Nigeria, adding that “the post graduate students were sent in three batches to top-ranking universities in France and some European countries, mostly to study science related courses.”

The commissioner further stated that the Ganduje administration re-introduced the payment of scholarship allowances to indigenous students attending Nigerian universities and other tertiary institutions, which was completely abandoned by the Kwankwaso  administration between 2011 and 2015.

He added under the scheme, the sum of N865.4 million was disbursed as scholarship allowances and provision of logistics for the payment exercise to indigenous students in the five Emirates across the 44 local governments of the state.