Corruption Saga: Buhari Gives NDDC One-Week Ultimatum To Pay Scholarship

President Muhammadu Buhari has given the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) a week to pay the beneficiaries of the commission’s scholarship scheme.

The agency Director of Corporate Affairs, Charles Odili, disclosed this after delivering the management’s invitation to the president, to inaugurate the 29-kilometre Ogbia-Nembe Road in Bayelsa State.

Odili in a statement said the students would be paid by the end of the week following the president’s order.

According to him, the delay was due to the sudden death of the agency’s former Acting Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Ibanga Etang, in May.

“Under the commission’s finance protocol, only the executive director (finance) and the executive director (projects) can sign for the release of funds from the commission’s domiciliary accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria,” Odili noted.

“With the death of Chief Etang, the remittance has to await the appointment of a new EDFA.

“Senator Akpabio, the Honourable Minister, said President Buhari who has been briefed on the protest by students at the Nigerian High Commission in London, has ordered that all stops be pulled to pay the students by the end of this week. We expect a new EDFA to be appointed this week. As soon as that is done, they would all be paid.”

The students who are beneficiaries of NDDC’s scholarship in UK, on Monday protested over the non-payment of their tuition fees and allowances in one year.

The students gathered at the Nigerian High Commission in London, to express their displeasure over negligence of their welfare according to agreement.