Over N774 million has been given to the Jigawa State Scholarship Board as scholarship allowance for students enrolled in universities across the country for the 2023/2024 academic year.
In an exclusive interview in Dutse, Malam Sa’idu Magaji, the executive secretary of the Jigawa State Scholarship Board, revealed that the board had already started the payment process.
“The state government has released a total sum of N774,810,085.00k being the allowance for 26,835 students studying at different higher institutions in Nigeria,” the executive secretary clarified.
According to him, “This amount for the 26,835 states’ indigenous students studying at different higher institutions in the country, with exception of our foreign students”.
Malam Sa’idu Magaji noted that the board had already commenced the payment to the beneficiaries students, “immediately we received the funds, we embarked on the payment as directed by his excellency governor Malam Umar Namadi”.
He stated; “We scheduled our payment into three. Starting with students studying at institutions within the state who were more in number. While the second is those of neighboring Kano state and the third is the students of the Institutions outside JIgawa and Kano states.
“We since finished with Jigawa and Kano states, they all received their allowances. We are now in other institutions across the country. Even as such we paid the students of Ahamadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, Usman Danfodio (UDU) Sokoto and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (ATBU) Bauchi”.
The executive secretary said; “So far we have paid over 95 percent of the students. They were all received their allowances, except some with peculiar problems of transaction failures”.
He added; “What we are doing is that, when we got any complain of not be paid, we will checking our bank record to find out what is the problem. Mostly is failed transactions for a dormant account or not account holder etc and rectify it”.
Malam Sa’idu Magaji thanked Governor Malam Umar Namadi for his assistance in the board’s work and effective discharge of its responsibilities.