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.”
http://www.punchng.com/politics/scrap-n100bn-foreign-scholarships/
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