By Daniel Tyokua
The Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) has screened about 560 candidates in the Northwest geopolitical zone as part of its annual exercise for overseas scholarship Scheme for MSc and PhD studies.
Candidates who scaled through will secure spots in the scholarship program aimed at developing human capacity for oil and gas industry in the country.
The manager, training, PTDF, Attahiru Ahmed disclosed this to journalists on Thursday, shortly before the commencement of the exercise.
He said, “We are looking at oil and gas related courses. 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.”
Ahmed noted that the programme which has been running for sometime, has developed a lot of capacities for the oil and gas industry.
The Director, Katsina State office of Federal Character Commission, Dalhatu Yusuf Ibrahim, described the selection process as transparent.
One of the candidates selected from the Department of Economics, Bayero University, Kano (BUK), Habiba Ali said she realised that advancing technology in nations financial sector will help in leveraging the problems being faced.
Another candidate, Chukwuebuka Nwali of the Nigerian Army Education Corps and a graduate of education physics, said, “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.”
