Over 700 candidates in the six South West states of the country have made frantic efforts to win the 2024/2025 postgraduates overseas scholarship scheme funded by the Petroleum Technology Development Fund.
The rigorous exercise which was supervised by the Federal Commissioner for Federal Character Commission representing Lagos State, Alhaji Abdulwasiu Bawa-Allah, was held at the Faculty of Technology, University of Ibadan.
According to the organisers of the exercise, candidates were drawn from the various disciplines such as Engineering, Applied Sciences, Sciences, Social Sciences among others.
The PTDF noted that the candidates were carefully selected after an intensive screening which was based purely on merit.
The leader of the team, Bawa-Allah claimed that the selected candidates were the best in recent times.
"The number of candidates for sponsorship will be determined by the total number of candidates who passed on merit. Even if they intend to do 100, and only 60 qualified, those will be the ones that would be sponsored. The exact amount of funding available is determined by the number of those who eventually qualified."
He added that the exercise would be replicated in other zones across the country. He said, zones such as Rivers State (South-South), Enugu (South-East); Abuja, (North Central); Bauchi State; (North East); and College of Petroleum & Energy Studies Kaduna, behind International Trade Fair Complex, Kaduna-Zaria expressway, Rigachikun, Kaduna State (North-West).
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"What the PTDF is doing is in line with the constitutional responsibilities of the FCC to the entire citizenry of the nation. The FCC has the constitutional responsibility of ensuring probity, equity, and fairness in the sharing/distribution of political offices, infrastructural facilities to the citizenry across the six geo-political region".
"What the PTDF is doing today is one of the social benefits to the Nigerians. The resources that will fund the scholarship is from the Nigerian states. FCC as a supervisory agent in this exercise is to ensure that a laid down procedure is duly followed, he stated.
"We are to ensure that it is equitably and fairly done. FCC does not compromise merit and that is why whoever that is qualified is selected and given the opportunity at the end of the exercise. PTDF process is going on smoothly. The interviewers are doing an excellent jobs.
"The selected candidates are duly verified. There is no case of impostor in this centre. The only advice I have for the management of the PTDF is to create more awareness in the subsequent edition."
