It's now more than one year since foreign trained doctors sponsored by the state government applied for money to pay for the Assessment Examination by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) and they have not been paid!
The exam was conducted in October/November 2018 and long before then, as is the practice, the poor students applied since May, 2018, through the scholarship board but more than one year now they are yet to be paid. They're now telling them to reapply... What happened to the previous applications?
The previous PDP government under Governor Ibrahim Shehu Shema, in its wisdom, sponsored so many students, especially girls, to study medicine and other essential courses that would be beneficial to the state government. It also had the wisdom to pay, upfront, complete tuition, accommodation and upkeep stipends. Most of them have now completed their studies and returned to pay back the state through the service they'd render.
I don't want to believe that Governor Masari has not paid the money. But then, the students have not been paid! So, what's up? Could it be... Well, I'll not speculate. I'd rather give the state scholarship board the benefit of the doubt. Still, one year is a long time for an application to be considered and approved even by a "scholarboat" board.
What if the parents of these kids had no money to pay for the exam (which runs into hundreds of thousands of naira)? Would they have been languishing at home for years waiting for the money? And the program was supposed to be for brilliant children of the less privileged parents. But I'd like to see a less privileged parent who could afford hundreds of thousands of naira.
I hope this post reaches Governor Masari's attention, because I don't believe he knows the real situation.
And I challenge investigative journalists to dig into the issue and come up with a true picture because, I hear, law students going to law school also face similar problems.
Reported by Abu Hurairah (RA): The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: "Three supplications are answered without doubt. The supplication of the oppressed, the supplication of the traveller, and the supplication of the parent for his son."
[At Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud]