MTN foundation offers scholarship to 360 students

From Victor Duruamaku  Owerri

A subsidiary of  the mobile telecommunications network  MTN Group Limited, has offered scholarships to 360 undergraduates in the 11 states of the South-South and South-East geo-political zones of Nigeria.

 

 

Director of the Foundation, Mr Dennis Okoro, announced the scholarships at an award ceremony for the incoming students  for  the year 2022, organised by the Foundation, in Owerri, on Wednesday.

 

 

Okoro  stated that each of the students  would receive the sum of N200,000 pointing out that the foundation had invested N3bn on 4,212  benefiting students  between  2011 and 2022.

 

 

He said that the scholarships were aimed at encouraging academic excellence and providing access to opportunities for constant self improvement as well as access to entrepreneurial funding initiatives.

 

 

He also said that the awardees, drawn from tertiary institutions across the country, were picked on merit, and called on well meaning Nigerians to partner the foundation for youth empowerment and development.

 

 

” As part of our social investment mandate, the MTN Foundation grants scholarships to eligible high performing students studying full-time science and technology related courses as well as blind students studying any discipline in public tertiary institutions.

 

 

” The awardees have all merited it, having successfully competed with about 50,000 other applicants, so we are here to bring them in and to induct those who have graduated passing through the scheme”, he said.

 

 

Also speaking, the Foundation’s General Manager for Sales and Promotions, South-East and South-South, Mr Innocent Entonu, said that the scholarships would provide financial support to the awardees.

 

 

He added that it would motivate them to continue aspiring to acquire the best of education for a secure future, both for themselves and the country at large.

 

 

Also, the Imo Governor, Sen. Hope Uzodimma, thanked the foundation for organising the event in the state and for giving back to society.

 

 

Uzodimma, represented by his Special Adviser on Youths, Mr Eric Uwakwe, expressed readiness to partner with the foundation for the welfare of youths in the state and the country at large.

 

 

One of the awardees, a blind, 300 level  Law student of the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, Mr Obinna Onyeishi, thanked  the foundation for the gesture