Letter to Gov Nasir El-Rufai

Your Excellency Sir,

Just of recent, you boastfully said that your administration granted N219 million scholarship to 1,251 students in the state owned tertiary institutions.

You also claimed that you abolished the old scholarship scheme, were previous governments paid between N10,000 and N20,000 to students annually, and replaced it with a model that covers their entire tuition fees and upkeep allowances.

Oh yes, this is certainly a good innovation in this 21st century. Nonetheless, let me remind the credulous; those who will buy into this cheap misconception and misplaced priority of Governor El-Rufai. When the Kaduna State Scholarship Board under the past administrations were paying N10,000 and N20,000, they didn’t hike the school fees to a outrageous amount that will be unaffordable by the children of the poor.

Under the successive PDP governments, Kaduna State University (KASU) tuition fees was the least in Nigeria. It is a fact that the school were one of the good PDP legacies, which enormously accommodates children of the less privileged ones. This gesture evidently depicts the magnanimous disposition of the PDP, ameliorating the plight of the plebians as their cardinal policy.

Therefore, it suffices to the impartial and logical minds to understand and judge between the “APC” and “PDP”, which party truly has the interest of the masses as their topmost priority. The reality is contrary to the misleading political rhetoric and statement, which Governor El-Rufai recently uttered in the local radio station; disdainfully accusing PDP for lack of empathy.

It’s obvious that the Kaduna state new scholarship policy is a ‘white elephant” scheme because there is no sincerity of purpose on the programme. Owing to the fact that out of the about 17,000 KASU students, more than 4,000 students were forced to forfeit their admission, as a result of the humongous tuition fees increase by the Kaduna state government.

Ironically, Governor El-Rufai is now bragging that the new scholarship scheme covers 1,251 students from the state owned tertiary institutions, while even the number of the KASU students alone, those who were deprived of their legitimate right to study in the university outnumbered the whole beneficiaries of the new scholarship scheme.

On a final note, this isn’t the type of government which the good people of Kaduna state anticipated.

Jabir T Usman,
Sabon Gari, Tudun Wada,
Kaduna