By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
Kano state governor, Rabi’u Kwankwaso has revealed that one of the beneficiaries of his administration’s postgraduate foreign scholarship programme, that was offered admission by a university in India, has diverted the money meant for his studies and absconded.
The governor disclosed this during the graduation ceremony of 240 youth trained on Screen Printing and Lettering/Painting held at Government House, Kano, explaining however, that the escapee returned to Nigeria and was apprehended.
A statement issued yesterday by the Director of Press and Public Relations, Halilu Ibrahim Dantiye, quoted Kwankwaso, saying that, “the state would not condone a situation whereby tax payer’s money would be diverted for selfish ends, warning beneficiaries of the government’s scholarships and training programmes to make good use of the opportunity to make headway in life”.
He pointed out that so far, over 200,000 youths have been empowered through various skills acquisition programmes by Kano state government, explaining that the skills acquisition programmes were introduced with a view to mitigating the disturbing menace of unemployment, improving employability and self reliance.
The governor maintained that the administration decided to introduce several empowerment programmes in keeping with its determination in ensuring sustainable human development, adding that the investment is yielding appreciable results.
“These beneficiaries received training in trades ranging from Chalk production, Football making, Bee keeping, Plumbing, Poultry farming, fish farming, garment making and Livestock management among others, asides offers of thousands of local and overseas scholarships to students of tertiary institution”.
Governor Kwankwaso, therefore, charged beneficiaries of the Screen Printing and Lettering/Painting programme, whom were given free start-up capital of N50, 000 each, to reciprocate the gesture by training and employing other unemployed youths in their respective localities after setting up their business.
