By MONSUR OLOWOOPEJO

Walking to the Lagos State University, LASU Motor Park, where he was to board the school shuttle, Mr. Olaosebikan Abdulfatai gazed at the commercial bank where he had previously received his bursary and couldn’t understand why the state government was yet to fulfill its promise to him.

The promise made by the state governor, Babatunde Fashola was that the government will assist indigent students of Lagos State origin in the tertiary institutions through payment of bursary award to subsidize their tuition fees.

Olaosebikan, a 400 level student of Banking and Finance, was nursing the hope that after the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, over four months old strike, the state government would conclude necessary arrangement to pay them the two years bursary arrears.

His hopes were however dashed weeks after their resumption, with no fixed date for the payment and his creditor wasn’t making life easy either.

Olaosebikan wasn’t the only one waiting for the funds. Miss. Mariam Akanbi, a graduate of Lagos State University, LASU lamented that the state government was yet to fix a date for the payment of the bursary.

Akanbi, a graduate of English Language, said, “I wished the state government had paid the fund before our graduation.”

Explaining the effect of the unpaid bursary award, Miss. Aminat Owolabi, another graduate of Lagos State University College of Medicine, LASUCOM, said: “I had hoped that the money will be paid on time to offset my debt. But till date, the state government was yet to announce any concrete date for the payment.”

The plight of these undergraduates and graduates are few of the several pathetic stories of indigenes of the state in tertiary institutions within and outside the state who were yet to receive their bursary.

Speaking to Vanguard, President of NULASS, Mr. Mademeku Abayomi lamented: “It is a known fact that bursary and scholarship are the only means for students to feel the impact of the government. But the case is different in Lagos today. Students are now being owed outstanding bursary and scholarship for over two years.”

Abayomi stated that 285, 000 students of Lagos origin in the state and outside can no longer rely on bursary or scholarship to pay their tuition fees.

He opined that despite their plea, the state government is yet to explain the delay in the payment of their bursary, adding “yearly, we are asked to buy N1, 000 scratch cards to fill our bursary form online. Even with this, the government is not forthcoming with the payment.”

Govt react

In an interview with Vanguard, Special Adviser to the Governor, Otunba Fatai Olukoga, said: “Recently, we went through the records and we discovered that certain number of students has not been paid their bursary. We have checked how much is needed to be paid and we have worked on that.

And let me inform the students that we have received approval to disburse over N498.3 million to 13,737 students as bursary. Also, over N189.674 million has been approved as scholarship for 2,519 students of Lagos origin.”