Our Expectations On Rivers foreign scholars, RSSDA, Greater PH sealed


Gladys Nweke

Hope that Rivers State foreign scholars languishing in various universities in the world may be reviewed with sympathy was finally dashed at the inauguration venue when no mention was made of it.

This seems to be the same fate as the workers at the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSD) and the Greater Port Harcourt City who had hoped for a miracle.

Rivers State had almost 1000 students yet to graduate in the foreign scholarship scheme before they were rudely yanked off by a new administration back home in May 2015 in a crossfire between two warring leaders (Chibuike Amaechi and Nyesom Wike.

Most of the scholars have been hanging around in their universities hoping for a positive development back home while some have been depending on their parents and some menial jobs.

The 2019 election gave some hope that a favourable administration could come into office on May 29, but none of these came to pass. The last hope was that Gov Wike could have a rethink and show sympathy. This too did not happen today.

The RSSDA has not been funded since 2015 while the Greater PH City Development Authority seems neither dead nor alive. Allocations have since stopped in annual budgets and salaries have remained uncertain.

Leave a Reply