By TINA TIMOTHY

The beneficiaries of the Nigerians Bilateral Educational Agreement (BEA) scholarship in Morocco under the Federal Scholarship Board (FSB) have called on the Federal Government and other well-meaning Nigerians to come to their aid.

Their Save-our-Soul cry was contained in a tweet by the Nigerian Students Association in Morocco, wherein they expressed their pain, agony, torture and disappointment as a lot of their members have been rendered homeless and can no longer afford basic needs; a situation they referred to as “unimaginable and calamitous,” and such that they “haven’t even experienced at home.”

The tweet reads: “The beneficiaries of the Nigerians Bilateral Educational Agreement (BEA) scholarship in Morocco under the Federal Scholarship Board (FSB), would like to, on behalf of all other BEA scholars in other countries, call on the Nigerian federal government to release our outstanding payments for six month now and counting.

“This unfortunate act of untimely payment is no new thing and has been a frequent practice over the years. The last time we had to call them upon was in a calamitous situation when we had to go over a year without payment and had to use this platform through distinguished and noble individuals, especially Mr Segun Awosanya (@segalink), who helped make our sad voices louder.

“We frankly do not understand why most of us who are less privileged were offered these scholarships in hopes for us to lift burdens of our parents, only to land us into this unimaginable and calamitous situation we haven’t even experienced while at home.

“This has rendered a lot of us homeless, especially in cases of scholars here in Morocco, where there are no provisions for student hostels to accommodate us and are forced to invest funds meant to cover up our food and school supplements, transportation, and health services into paying apartment rents, and bills involved. Such has made life harder for us and less fortunate than scholars in other countries.

“Currently, most of us are being chased out of our apartments, and are finding it really hard to afford our basic needs.

“Earlier on, an association of concerned parents to some of the scholars visited the Ministry of Education to find out what was going on, but to no avail due to non-sequential stories being given to them.

“We put these down in pain and agony being that our dear country has kept us off its priorities.

“We humbly request that you re-tweet, like, and if possible, comment by tagging influential figures to come to our aid and make our pathetic voices reach to concerned individuals.”

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