The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has given scholarships to 16 Masters degrees and one PhD candidates from Nigeria to advance their study in Information Technology related fields in Turkey.
Addressing the students, who will be leaving Nigeria later today, the Director-General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, urged them to not only be Nigerian ambassadors but NITDA’s and their various families as well.
The DG, who was represented at the event by the Director, Information Technology Infrastructure Solutions Dr. Usman Abdullahi Gambo, admonished the students to consider themselves extremely lucky to be selected among the over two thousand applicants across the country through a keenly contested exercise.
This set of students represents the first batch of forty postgraduate students that scaled the hurdles and prove their mettle to enjoy NITDA’s scholarship this year. The students are expected to pursue a postgraduate degree in Masters and PhD at the prestigious FIRAT University in Turkey.
The selection of masters degree students whose duration of study is between one year or 18 months was based on one student per state of the federation including FCT, while the PhD students, whose duration of study is 3 years, were selected on the basis of one student per zone.
The students were further reminded of the enormous responsibilities they are shouldering by representing Nigeria and NITDA because they will henceforth be regarded as NITDA Scholars. They will have to justify the confidence reposed in them by not only coming out in flying colours but with destabilizing innovations that will take the world by storm.
They were equally reminded of their signed contract with NITDA to return to Nigeria after their studies to give back to the country for a minimum of three years. This, among others, is another way of fulfilling NITDA’s mandate and priority areas of capacity building in Information Technology Development.
Speaking on behalf of the students, the only PhD candidate in their midst, expressed joy and thanked NITDA for restoring the love of Nigeria in their minds. “I had earlier lost all hope in the country believing that nothing good can happen to a commoner who has no Godfather, but with this seamless exercise that was strictly based on merit I now wish to pledge my love and loyalty to the country with a promise to give back to the society from what I have benefitted,” he said.
