The Federal Government has asked members of the public to disregard the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) scholarship list which is currently in circulation.
The circulating list titled “JUSTICE TO ONE IS JUSTICE TO ALL”, was attached to a letter purportedly written by a Nigerian abroad to the education minister Adamu Adamu over an alleged skewness of the scholarships awarded. The list was labelled “anti north” as 19 northern states had only 21 candidates, while 17 southern states had 70.
However reacting to the list, the federal ministry of education’s Director of Press and Public Relations, Mr Ben Bem Goong said the conclusion of the 2020 awards has been delayed due to the impact of COVID-19 and would be uploaded on the Ministry’s website as soon as the exercise is concluded.
He added that the purported list being circulated is aimed at embarassing the Ministry or with the intent to dupe unsuspecting candidates.
Goong said;
“The attention of the Federal Ministry of Education has been drawn to a fake list circulating on social media platforms under the above caption and to the effect that the Federal Ministry of Education has approved scholarship awards to the listed candidates under the 2020 Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA).
“The Ministry wishes to state that the list which has been partly extracted and manipulated from applications received by the Ministry only for awards obtainable for Russia, did not emanate from the Ministry and is purely the handiwork of mischief-makers.
“The authentic list of all the scholarship awardees from 2009 to date is available on the Ministry’s website; www.education.gov.ng for members of the public to access.
“The conclusion of the 2020 awards has been delayed due to the impact of COVID-19 and will be uploaded on the Ministry’s website; www.education.gov.ng as soon as the exercise is concluded.
“The general public is hereby advised to disregard the fake list being circulated to embarrass the Ministry or with the intent to dupe unsuspecting candidates.
“I am to add that candidates will be contacted directly by the Federal Scholarship Board and the awarding/host countries on their selection.”
