The Ohaneze Ndigbo Youth Wing Worldwide has berated the Federal Government for excluding the South East Youths from the Petroleum Technology Development Fund scholarship scheme (PTDF) for the year 2022.
In a release signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the group, Mr. Chile Art Adiele, the group wondered how PTDF could disenfranchise the entire SouthEast and deny their youths of such National Empowerment Program on the flimsy basis of insecurity, asking whether the parastatal is meant to promote National cohesion or disintegration.
They stated that just few weeks ago, bandits attacked a train said to be carrying close to a thousand passengers from Kaduna end route Abuja, and more than eight people, including a promising young Igbo lady who is a medical doctor were killed, more than one hundred and sixty-eight passengers yet to be accounted for and many are still in the custody of their abductors, but they were included in the scholarship scheme.
The group further said that from Borno to Adamawa, up to Yobe, ISWAP, Boko Haram terrorists and other criminal gangs are annexing territories, collecting taxes from indigenes and killing security agents with ease.
Ohaneze Ndigbo Youth Wing regretted that from the South South region to the South West, the story of unwarranted killings, maiming, kidnapping for ransom, rape and various terrorist’s attacks are uncountable.
They admitted that in the Southeast, there are criminals parading as freedom fighters, enforcing illegal sit-at-home orders and harassing innocent people, but noted that the situation is not worse than other parts of Nigeria, and that the recently concluded Party congresses and Primary elections took place in the Southeast without any single incident of violence leading to fatality.
They find it inexcusable and highly mischievous that the Chairman of PTDF would give an order for the Southeast to be excluded from the recently released shortlist of 2022 batch of PTDF scholarship beneficiaries on the basis of insecurity.
According to them, they consider the story as a clear demonstration of the well-orchestrated persecution of the Southeast by the federal government and call on all well-meaning Nigerians, religious and traditional leaders, the National Assembly and indeed all men and women of conscience to rise up and speak against the dangerous injustice against the Southeast by calling the Management of PTDF to do the needful and expeditiously accommodate and conduct their interviews in the South East.
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