In a move seen by many as a direct affront on the National Assembly, the Supervising Minister for Education, Nyesom Wike, has issued award letters to beneficiaries of the second edition of the Presidential Special Scholarship Scheme for Innovation and Development (PRESSID).
It will be recalled that the House of Representative had threatened last week, to cancel the scheme, if it does not comply with the constitutional principles of federal character.
The House, led by its Committee Chairman on Education, Aminu Suleiman, had threatened to pull the plug on the implementation of the scheme as according to him there was no candidates from 17 northern states, and that the region only had seven candidates represented on the list of the 104 that were successful.
He said: “Those seven candidates were only from the North-central zone and there was no single candidate from the North-east or North-west zones. Such lopsidedness threatens to portray the President in a bad light.”
Wike, however, countered the position of the House by insisting that merit rather than federal character principle played a fundamental role in the entire selection exercise.
“If we had followed federal character, most of you wouldn’t have been here, we would have jettisoned merit. Even if all of you come from one family, so be it, because Mr. President’s instruction that merit should be followed to the letter, must be obeyed.”
Earlier, in his welcome address, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie, who is also the chairman of PRESSID, noted that the selection exercise was done in the most transparent manner where integrity played a key role.