- Dismisses Tinubu’s students loan scheme
From John Adams, Minna
No fewer than 30,000 students from Nigeria universities across six states of the federation have so far benefitted from scholarship programme of an American based Pastor, Chuzzy Udenwa aimed at assisting the undergraduates financially towards their education.
The general overseer of the Glory House City Church, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America, Pastor Chuzzy Udenwa, stated this in Minna, the Niger State capital while presenting the scholarship awards to 300 students drawn from some selected tertiary institutions in the state.
Pastor Undenwa said the 30,000 beneficiaries were from six states of Anambra, Enugu, Imo, Niger, Ekiti and the federal capital territory Abuja adding that, “we also give small scholarship of N50,000 to each student in four categories at our campus crusades.”
While regretting the rot in our education sector, especially at the university level, the cleric said his ministry is dedicated to touch the lives of students mostly affected by the high cost of education in the country, stressing that, ” most of our students are getting frustrated out of school because of the hardship. So we get some population of students and trained them at mind to get out of frustration.”
The 300 beneficiaries from Niger state were picked from eight tertiary instructions in the state which include Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State Polytechnic Zungeru, Niger State college of education, Federal Polytechnic Bida, Justice Fati Lami school of legal studies, Minna and Newgate University of Medical Sciences, Minna.
No fewer than 48 of these beneficiaries received instant cash of N50, 000 to support their education while the remaining ones were given different categories of scholarships.
The scholarships were given to the benefiting students by Pastor Udenwa during the two day Niger Inter Campus Fire Crusade organised by the Glory City Campus Fellowship Nigeria at the Niger State College of Education Minna.
Speaking at the well attended Niger Campus Fire Crusade, Pastor Udenwa said the decision to invade the Nigerian campuses for the crusade which has taken him to five states so far and Abuja was borne out of the need to pray for the Nigerian students because of the evils that have taken over the campuses in Nigerian.
In addition to this, he pointed out that there is the urgent need to give back to the society through sponsorship of students who at the verge of being thrown out of school due to lack of sponsorship.
According to him “there are a lot of evil in our campuses today that have pushed our children into cultism, drug abuse, Internet frauds, armed robbery, prostitution among others. We need to pray for these students.
“If you want to rebuild Nigeria today, you don’t start with the elders, you start with the students who are the leaders of tomorrow and you can only achieve this through engaging them, that is what informed the campus fire crusade.
“While we pray for them, we also give them financial supports in terms of scholarships to help those who can not meet up with their school fees. We give some financial supports and others full scholarships”.
Speaking on the federal government students loan scheme, Pastor Udenwa dismissed the loan scheme saying that such initiative will not work because the targeted beneficiaries will have no means of paying back the loan.
“Are you going arrest the parents who did not have money to pay their children school fees in the first place, or are you doing to arrest the students who don’t have job after graduation”, he queried.
He argued that “when you throw money at the students in the name of loan without changing their mindset it will be a waste of resources because they will see it as their own share of the national cake. It will not yield any impact.
“The system has affected the psych of the students, so you need to change their psych and way of thinking and mindset. There is so much corruption in the system, so such initiative will not work”, he added.
Pastor Udenwa said that it is high time the government hands off education and allow private individuals and institutions run the educational system while it plays a supervisory role, stressing that “in the western world, education is for the private individuals, sometimes it is a joint venture.”
He however warned that Nigeria must do something very quick about growing population of its youths, adding that the country will soon explode if nothing is done about the students who graduate every year without job.