Tunde Oyekola, Ilorin
The Kwara State Government has said that it saved N7.9m by using e-registration and e-payment for bursary awards to indigenes of the state studying in the Nigerian Law School.
A statement signed by the Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Hajia Sa’adatu Modibbo-Kawu, in Ilorin on Sunday said that at least 179 law students and new lawyers of Kwara origin have each been paid the sum of N100,000 as scholarships after going through online application processes and verification, which lasted a few weeks.
The commissioner said the bursary awards, paid directly into the beneficiaries’ bank accounts, was done in two batches after a thorough screening of the applicants.
She added that the first batch of recipients comprised 68 backlog students, who are still in the law school out of the 89 that applied for the bursary award, while the second batch involved 111 lawyers of Kwara origin that were called to bar in November 2019.
The statement read in part, “The verification process in the first batch saved the government N2.1m as 21 of the original 89 applicants were screened out on various grounds. Some of them have graduated from law schools, some are non- Kwarans and about 7 of them are neither Kwarans nor in law schools. The successful applicants were paid late December, 2019,” the statement said.
“On Friday 10 January, 2020, the government concluded the second batch by paying (N100,000 each) to 111 law school graduates who were recently called to bar after online and physical verification duly monitored by all the stakeholders.”
The government, it added, also saved N5.8million as only 111 of the 169 on the approved list survived the screening exercise.
The state government had in November paid bursary valued at N5,000 each to 8,304 final year students in all the government-owned (state and federal) tertiary institutions across the country.
Modibbo-Kawu said Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq had meanwhile, commended one Barrister Yunusa AbdulMutallab, one of the beneficiaries, who, despite being twice credited during the exercise due to network glitches, voluntarily returned the extra payment of N100,000 to the ministry.
“AbdulMutallab’s action is quite inspiring and reassuring that this state has a bright future. The Governor hereby commends this fine learned gentleman for his honesty and contentment. We are in fact proud of him and wish him success in all of his endeavours,” the commissioner added.
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