From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
Over 500 candidates undergoing screening in Northwest zone for Overseas Scholarship by the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) have promised their commitment to bringing development and progress to oil and industry in the country at the end of their training if given the opportunity.
PTDF officials and relevant stakeholders have embarked on annual screening of candidates for the Overseas Scholarship Scheme for MSc, PhD and other category of studies for the week long exercise at Kaduna centre, Northwest geopolitical zone.
Some of the candidates spoke with newsmen shortly before the commencement of the exercise at the ICT centre of Kaduna State University (KASU) campus.
They bared their minds on how they got to know about the scholarship scheme and their determination to bring progres and development to oil and gas industry if given the training outside the country.
According to one of the candidates, Habiba Ali, “I earned my degree from Bayero University, Kano. I’m here for the PTDF scholarship interview. I’m applying for computational finance. Why computation finance?. From my background knowledge as an economist, I come to realize that one of the critical sectors in Nigeria’s economy that is causing the downflow in our Nigeria’s economy is from the financial aspect, which as an economist, I come to realize that advancing technology in our financial sector will help in leveraging the problems we are having. We help in solving the problems we are having in our financial sector.
“So as an economist and my skills in data science and data analysis, so I come to realize that combining the skills together with my background knowledge of economic principle and theories, I think that will be a better way of solving Nigeria’s financial sector issues. I came to know about the program on social media and friends, my colleagues, that are also looking for ways like this to study and getting their masters. So I got to learn about the site and I applied and fortunately I found myself here and I’m so grateful for that”.
Another candidate, Captain Chukwuebuka Nwali of the Nigerian Army Education Corps explained that, “I came here because of the PTDF, ongoing PTDF interview and overseas scholarships. I studied education physics in my undergraduate, then I’m going for nuclear physics.
“I got to know about PTDF through a friend who happens to be a scholar, so my classmates have benefited from this and then I know some friends that are scholars too. And then I follow them on social media, on Instagram, X, and Facebook. I have discovered that there are a lot of problems in the oil and gas industry that will require my expertise to solve. Let’s take, for instance, corrosion. The issue of corrosion degradation of oil and gas equipment has been costing Nigeria a lot, in billions of naira.
“So, I tend to solve this problem using my knowledge at Uganda, when PTDF sponsors me. Then, apart from that, I’m interested in nuclear physics. There are a lot of benefits Nigeria can derive from nuclear science and technology, ranging from health to industry to research. We are all exposed to radiation. Even the sun itself is a source of radiation. And how do the sun, this sun that is up here, how does it come to be? It is through nuclear processes. So I intend to go, then study, and then come back to add value to Nigeria, and oil and gas industry in particular”.
Ibrahim Jamilu, department of geology, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria is another candidate who came for the screening exercise.
According to him, “I’m here for the PTDF Overseas Scholarship. Since during my undergraduate studies when I am at ABU university, Zaria, our lecturers and the students board used to organize like international opportunities for the neurosciences, so from there I came to know about the PTDF and I tried to even set a goal that today I’m even here. My intended course of study is environmental geology.
“So what makes me to pick this course is all these oil and gas operations that are currently happening in Nigeria, they left behind the three-thirds damage that this community faces. A lot of damages in air, quality of air, land and water. All of them you see that they are contaminated. So I intend to do this environmental geology, which is a course that deals with the interaction between the human activities, that is this oil exploration, and the geologic environments. So I’m trying to understand all these causes of contamination and try to mitigate them through my master’s degree in environmental geology”.
Earlier, the Manager, Training, PTDF, Attahiru Ahmed told newsmen in an interview that the essence of the scholarship is to develop human capacity for oil and gas industry in the country.
“We are here to interview applicants of the PTDF overseas scholarship scheme. The interview is part of the selecting process for the Overseas scholarship. This week we are interviewing Masters degree applicants and it will run from Monday to Friday. We are expecting 350 candidates this week for the masters. We scheduled them for morning and afternoon. You know PTDF is scheduled with the responsibility of developing capacity for the oil and gas industry. So all we are doing is to develop capacity for oil and gas industry.
“We are looking at oil and gas related courses. What we are doing is that we have six centres in the whole Federation, that is one centre per geopolitical zone. And from there each candidate can select centre that is closer to him or her that he want to sit for the interview. The criteria for this interview is that the candidate must possess O,level certificate, their class of degrees, and the relevant fields that they are applying for.
“This programme has been running for sometimes now and it has developed a lot of capacities for the oil and gas industry and we have a lot of PTDF scholars working in the industry. We will do the ranking of the outcome of the interview and base on it, then we select based on the number allocated to the State”. Ahmed said.
Also fielding questions from newsmen,
Director, Katsina State office of Federal Character Commission, Dalhatu Yusuf Ibrahim, informed that, “This selection process has been transparent, this is not the first time the Fund is conducting this. They have their criteria on the basis of which they make their selection, they shortlist on the basis of that criteria. Then they shortlist, invite candidates and we come to monitor how equitable the process is, and that is why we are here”.
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