Maikalangu Awards Over 1000 Scholarships To Tertiary Students
By: Wisdom Acka
Abuja Municipal Area Council Chairman (AMAC), Christopher Zakka Maikalangu, has awarded scholarship to 1,024 students of AMAC origin.
The awards were for 100 post-graduate diploma students, 462 university undergraduates, and 462 polytechnics and Colleges of Education students selected from the 12 wards of the Council.
Maikalangu, who disclosed this yesterday at AMAC Town Hall, Apo Resettlement, during disbursement of the awards to the students, added that 80 beneficiaries were selected from each of the wards.
He explained that, despite receiving thousands of applications, 1,024 of them were considered after a rigorous screening exercise conducted along with Councillors drawn from the 12 electoral wards of the Council.
Maikalangu said: “It is my pleasure to address you this morning at the official presentation of scholarship awards to 1,024 successful applicants of Abuja Municipal Area Council origin for the 2022/2023 academic session.”
“Like you all know, today’s event is very important to us because it marks the continuation of a journey towards fulfilling one of my electoral promises which is, assisting brilliant and less-privileged students in tertiary institutions across the country,” he said.
“On this note, may I inform you that at the beginning of my administration, I set up an educational scholarship committee saddled with the responsibility of screening and making recommendations for successful applicants,” he added.
“After a rigorous exercise conducted along with Councillors drawn from the 12 electoral wards of the Council, a total of 1,024 applicants were successful out of the thousands that applied to benefit. So far, based on the recommendations and outcome of the committee, we are expending N30,000,000 million on the 2022/2023 scholarship exercise,” the Chairman stressed.
His words: “We promised to identify with the less-privileged children and families as we strive to advance their social and educational pursuits. We aim to making the beneficiaries become better citizens in the future. For those who couldn’t benefit this year, next year will be better as we aim to continue improving.”
The Chairman revealed that, by next year, the Council would commence issuing scholarships abroad; emphasizing, “From next year, we will aim at sending many of you abroad to study. With skills acquired, they can come back here and impact on others and change things. I wish you all, goodluck and a very successful exercise.”
The Council Head of Department, Education, Dr. Sheriff Ibrahim, who spoke earlier revealed that Maikalangu has equally helped in securing admissions for many AMAC residents in the University of Abuja and others.
He said: “The scholarship award by the Chairman of AMAC is not surprising. He has proven himself over the months as an education friendly Chairman. He has taken a giant strides by securing admission for over 70 UniAbuja students who hail from AMAC. He signed a letter and sent to the VC for their admission as they made the 180 cut off mark.
Also speaking at the occasion, President of AMAC Students Association (ASA), Miss Salihu Honest Gode, who is Also a final year student of Accounting in University of Jos, said that the beneficiaries, especially students from AMAC in different institutions, are grateful for the scholarship and will support Maikalangu in all his political aspirations.
