Sen. Umeh disburses N64m to 326 indigent students under his scholarship scheme

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By Madu Obi

The senator representing Anambra Central Senatorial district, Senator Victor Umeh has disbursed the sun of N64 million to 326 indigents students in tertiary institutions as part of his ongoing scholarship scheme.

The beneficiaries of the funds, who received their alerts on the spot from officials of Fidelity Bank during an impressive ceremony at the Cana House, Awka, were brilliant students who gained admissions into the institutions, but could not pay their school fees.

Addressing the beneficiaries and some of their parents, Senator Umeh said he was inspired to invest in education of the youths by his political leader and the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party ( LP), Mr. Peter Obi.

He said that though he started assisting indigent students even before joining politics, he later decided to set up the scholarship scheme which is being handled by trusted individuals.

According to him, the scholarship beneficiaries cut across all parts of the South East ,although the majority are from Anambra Central senatorial zone which he represents in the nation's upper legislative chambers.

Umeh said: "The beneficiaries are usually selected from all the communities in the senatorial zone.

"We started with 76 students who were selected from the seven local government areas of Anambra Central senatorial zone. We then added six who were of special needs.

Those 76 had doctors, engineers, lawyers, accountants and other professionals and by 2023, all of them had graduated. In 2024, I increased the number to 223 and increased it again to 326 this year.

We get the students through the town union Presidents who gave us two students each from the 58 communities in the zone before I considered candidates from stakeholders and people who encountered me in one way or the other and I saw they need to be empowered educationally. I also reached out to major stakeholders, including Bishops of the various denominations who sent names to us".

According to him, the programmme is part of his constituency project because, as he added , he made scholarship part of his project for the youths.

"Having been inspired by our leader, Mr Peter Obi who is a champion of empowering youths through education, I realized that with education, people are liberated from the shackles of poverty and ignorance, thereby building a better society.

I have the highest number of classrooms developed anywhere in the senatorial zone, in addition to the scholarship. Education is important to the overall development of the state."

He said further: "From the N37 million we paid in 2024, we have increased it to N60 million and I chose the Federal College of Agriculture, Ishiagu Ebonyi State as my agency to apply for the funds.

Although the money has not been made available from the budget, I had to source it elsewhere to enable those enjoying the scholarship to pay their school fees.

Most of the students wrote to me asking for their school fees and I had to take a loan to implement this. Empowering youths to acquire education gives me joy and in this programmme, we do not discriminate."