200 N'Deltans Get NDDC Overseas Post-Graduate Scholarships

Semenitari (right) presenting award certificate to one of the recipients of the scholarships,  Wednesday.

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has awarded post-graduate scholarships to 200 indigenes of the region to study various programmes in different countries of the world.
Of the 200 scholarships, 51 are for PhD and 149 for MSc.
Speaking while presenting the awards to the recipients, Wednesday, the Acting Managing Director, NDDC, Ibim Semenitari, said that merit was basis of consideration for the awards.
“We are proud to announce that each of them is a worthy beneficiary, having scaled the highly competitive Computer-Based Test; performed excellently in the tasking oral interview, and therefore, achieved a high aggregate,” she said.
“I am delighted to address these young, actively intelligent natives of the Niger Delta region who have won for themselves scholarship to pursue higher academic laurels overseas. Theirs is a story of what can be achieved through hard work, commitment and determination. It is the story of what success that can be achieved when men and women commit themselves to doing what is right at the right time”, Semenitari added.
According to her, “The narrative surrounding the NDDC Foreign Post-Graduate Scholarship Programme is woven into the very fabric of the commission. It was borne of the need to bridge the huge manpower deficit in the Niger Delta region, especially in Engineering, Science and Technology, the fields that drive the oil industry. It was conceived to build a pool of professionals whose intellectual mobility will be in tandem with global trend and procure proper and adequate space for the region as the goose that lays the golden egg.
“The motive was, and remains, to garner and horn the great natural possibilities and intellectual endowments that abound in the region. The stories today are testimonials that the motive was right and the motif truly determined to make a difference. That is what NDDC stands for – To Make A Difference.
“This Scholarship Programme, which commenced in 2010, is a good story to be told. And that is why, today, as the latest beneficiaries prepare to embark on their pursuit of the Golden Fleece, but in the academia, overseas, the NDDC is proud that the Niger Delta is sending out the best and the brightest of a pool of about 3,000 applicants,” Semenitari noted.
It would be recalled that since its inception six years ago, a total of about 1, 2411 scholars in the PhD and MSc levels from the nine mandate states of the commission have benefitted from the scheme.
A breakdown shows that the total number of beneficiaries in the MSc level stands at 1,066 while in PhD has a total of 345.
Highlights of the event were the presentation of special excellence awards to 18 beneficiaries, each in each level, from each state, for their exceptional performance.
See a cross section of awardees