Two weeks after 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE exclusively reported that over 90 Sokoto medical students are stranded in India and Sudan after their graduation, Sokoto State Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal has released fund for the purchase of their return air tickets.
The state government announced this on Friday. The graduates were left stranded in India, Sudan and Ghana months after their graduation.
On June 2, this newspaper reported that 52 of the affected students were in India, 29 in Sudan and 18 in Ghana.
Some of the students who spoke to our correspondents at that time said they were still waiting for the state government to pay their air tickets back home.
Two weeks after this exclusive report, an official in the state said the stranded graduates in Sudan would arrive Nigeria on 20 June, while those in India would return on 30 June.
Giving the breakdown of the stranded medical students, the Permanent Secretary in the Sokoto State Scholarship Board, Bello Isa, said 52 of the students studied Nursing, Pharmacy, Radiography and other Medical related courses in India, while 20 graduated in Sudan.
He said the 20 Sudanese graduates include 14 qualified medical doctors, two nurses, two pharmacists and two laboratory scientists.
Mr Isa said already 28 others who studied Radiology and Physiotherapy in India had arrived and commenced intensive training at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto.
He noted that, the graduates were among the 200 sponsored by the administration of Governor Tambuwal from 23 local government of the state to study Medicine and other related courses in India, Sudan, Ghana and Ukraine at the beginning of his administration.
Mr Isa said, “The Indian graduates will insha Allahu arrive on 30 June, 2022 while the Sudanese will be in Sokoto on June 20th.”
Tambuwal also approved the release of N122m for the payment of school fees to the state indigenes studying at Baze University Abuja.
