WAS 2016 PTDF SCHOLARS LIST DOCTORED?

Between July 18 and 21 this year, 528 new scholars were inducted for the 2016/2017 Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) for scholarship to under take Masters and Doctorate degree studies abroad and within Nigeria.

According to the official story on the PTDF website, these were men and women chosen after application had been thrown open and shortlisted applicants made to face expert interview panel.

For example, goes the official story, 1305 people applied for the outside Nigeria PhD programme,(OSS) out of which 706 were shortlisted for interview and screening while 196 applied to undergo theirs locally (LSS) and 133 were shortlisted.

In the end, the 528 successful applicants inducted in July were made up of 273 scholars bound outside Nigeria to study for masters and PhD while 255 will undergo theirs locally.

During the induction, the scholars were assured by Central Bank representative that providing the foreign exchange components of their study will be no problem because the programme has the full support of the federal government.

Acting PTDF boss, Ahmed Galadima Aminu also explained why it became necessary this year for scholars to sign undertaking to come back to serve Nigeria after the course; why they must also provide a guarantor for same and why this years programme was extended beyond UK universities to institutions in France, Brazil and Germany.

However, some things about the year's selection process raise some questions bothering on possible tinkering.

Good enough, as part of the process, the list of  the shortlisted applicants for OSS PhD was made public on the website for a long while.

Unfortunately, a close look at this list shows that 694 applicants were invited and not the 706 officially claimed later. Where did the additional 12 come from and why were they not made public like others?

Besides, of the 255
now approved to study abroad, nine named were not on the list made public for the OSS PhD programme. Were they part of the 12 that were not made public? Did they face the expert panel without their names being on the published list?

The nine perhaps super bright ones were made up of two from Akwa Ibom, one each from Adamawa, Ebonyi, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Taraba and Zamfara States.

Perhaps, even more striking was the fact that the shortlisted applicants for the local universities programme was not published like the foreign one. Why?

In other words, much as there was even an attempt to be seen to be transparent with the OSS perhaps because it is an attached condition, no such effort was made for LSS one. Is this because our universities do not need any such convincing of the transparency of the selection?

Through the website, Henates forwarded some of these questions to PTDF but no reply yet. Attempt to send an equally formal email message for the attention of Kalu Otiti, head press and external relations was aborted because the message was not accepted and so, could not be delivered on line.