Admin|22 April 2016|5:23am
CROSS RIVER STATE GOVERNMENT SCHOLARS –RUSSIAN FEDERATION
30th Mar. 2016.
The Charge d’Affairs
Minister, Deputy Head of Mission,
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
Moscow, Russia.
Ma/Sir,
APPEAL FROM CROSS RIVER STATE SCHOLARS IN RUSSIAN FEDERATION
We, the Cross River State Scholars in the Russian Federation, humbly wish to draw your attention to our plight. The new academic session began since 1st September 2015, within this period we were expected to have completed the following:
-Payment of Tuition fees, covering accommodation, clothing allowances and personal allowance to feed.
-Immigration registration, to enable the procurement/extension of visa to cover the new academic session.
-Health insurance registration.
-Begin the preparation and submission of research papers, and project work.
None of these have been executed as our state government has not sent any allowances to us for the on-going academic session. This has left us with the following problems:
*Expired visas (which are always renewed at the beginning of every academic year to cover only the period of studentship);
*Expired hostel/accommodation rent, exposing us to the threat of ejection, and we are now living in our hostels based on the written appeal we made to the schools to allow us some more time;
*Not having been grouped into any academic group because students cannot attend any lecture or take part in academic activities until tuition fees have been remitted;
*When any health issues arise concerning any one of us, no medical assistance can be sought since we all have expired medical insurance.
*In the event of expulsion, we cannot even afford our air-tickets back home, as we have barely enough to even sustain us.
We are now surviving on the goodwill of friends. More so the inflation rate makes even survival without remitted funds unbearable.
We kindly appeal that you use your good offices to prevail on our State government to bail us out. We know that under previous administrations, even Non-scholarship students normally receive financial assistance from their state governments when they find themselves in this kind of situation and appeal to their governors. Let ours not be different.
We appreciate the financial stress on the government, but let them support us to stay alive, finish our programmes and return to be part of the transformation efforts of the new government!
Out of the twenty-four of us left out here in the extreme Russian cold, more than half are in their final year. Let something be done so that they can graduate, as their four years of studies wouldn’t be a waste!
