We are Ebonyi indigenes under the postgraduate scholarship scheme and sponsorship of Ebonyi State Government pursuing various Ph.D. degrees at different Universities in Diaspora who have been abandoned to our fate since 2015.
Firstly, we must appreciate the effort that has been made by your Excellency to ameliorate our condition here but that has not been enough to free us from the clutches of debts and embarrassment facing us in the foreign land.
Your Excellency can recall that your administration had approved over £6,000 each of the students in this category of Ebonyi State Government scholarship scheme on two different occasions with the tag ‘School fees’.
However, we want to bring to your notice, your Excellency that the approved fund could not pay our school fees on the minimum.
Though we gratefully acknowledged these approvals, the truth is that the approved money was very insufficient to offset part of our tuition fees which run between fifteen thousand British pounds (15,000 GBP) to thirty thousand British pounds (30,000 GBP) per each student, per academic session depending on the research area of the student.
Our University admission letters including the previous invoices of our first-year fees paid in full and directly to our institutions account by the Ebonyi State Government stands as evidence to this claim your Excellency.
Nevertheless, it is obvious your Excellency that we had accumulated huge debts owing to house rent, feeding and other miscellaneous expenditures that supported our lives and strengthened our focus on our study programs knowing fully well that we have limitations on our Tier 4 student visas.
Based on these facts, we prioritized our needs at that time based on the available resources and decided to judiciously use the previously approved sum to offset our accumulated bills in other to guarantee our survival to continue with the studies and with the hope that your Excellency will approve our tuition fees and stipends at the appropriate time.
Relatively, ‘things are now falling apart’, on our studies your Excellency because our present year of study is getting us more frustrated each time we remember that we have some accumulated unsettled debts which can nullify our three-year great efforts if urgent attention is not given to us by the Ebonyi State Government.
Additionally, we passionately remind your Excellency that the payment of all our outstanding tuition fees is long overdue, and our various institutions of learning have exhausted their patience and are about to commence legal action against us.
We have all received first and second warnings from our various institutions and the third one shall involve the Debt Collectors Management who shall commence a legal action in this regard. The effects of further delay are that:
1) The legal proceedings will be initiated against each of us by our study institutions in accordance with the laws of the jurisdiction of our institutions of study.
This shall involve the candidate and the sponsor as the defendants knowing that the contract was established between Ebonyi State Government and our various institutions.
2) Our admissions shall be terminated without a second opportunity to bargain for continuity.
This will make futile our personal efforts and the financial efforts of the Ebonyi State Government to send us abroad for overseas studies.
3) Both the names of the defendants shall be published in both national and international newspapers.
This shall have a colossal effect on the good image of Ebonyi State Government of Nigeria in the diaspora and might also affect Ebonyi State Government relationship with the global community.
4) We shall be compelled to pay all the outstanding fees including the penalties as shall be determined by the ruling court without further opportunity to complete our studies.
In view of these matters outlined above and considering the dangers the legal action will pose to our future as visionary youths and the development of Ebonyi State, we most humbly appeal to your Excellency to have compassion on our plight and in your usual magnanimity approve the immediate release of our tuition fees and stipends to enable us to concentrate on our research and avert the danger of facing detrimental and inimical repercussions which would arise from legal actions.
In conclusion, we pledge our indubitable support to your Excellency’s leadership visions in transforming Ebonyi State to globally recognized State in Nigeria and each of your ambitions that will ensure continuity of these dividends of democracy to our dearly beloved people of Ebonyi State.
Thank you and God bless your Excellency.
Signed:
Enyita Clifford Iteshi
+447570726381
