Mkpoikana Udoma
30 January 2018, Sweetcrude, Port Harcourt — As a way of unlocking the future of young people, Belemaoil Producing Limited, together with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, have awarded scholarships worth over N700 million to 374 students from its host communities in Rivers State.
The beneficiaries comprise of 121 secondary schools students, 175 undergraduates and 78 postgraduate students.
Speaking at the award ceremony in Port Harcourt, the President and Founder of Belemaoil Producing Limited, Mr. Jackrich Tein, said the company spent over N100million yearly on scholarships for its host communities.
Tein, explained that wealth creation cannot be possible if the required capacities are not developed, adding that it would also be impossible to have a great nation if the young ones were not given the right training, the right exposures and the right academic advancement.
The Belemaoil boss added that what the company has done was not just about showing wealth but creating wealth in the heart and minds of the young ones so that they can, in turn, do same for the society when they come out.
According to him, “Though the total scholarship per annum is over a hundred million naira. What we have given today is over N70million cheque and we have other students on our scholarship in Cyprus, UK, America, Canada, Ghana, Malaysia, Phillippines and in Nigerian schools.
“We are here not just to celebrate the success that has come to them, but to also honour the privilege given to us as a company to serve. We recognise very importantly that if you joke with education then you are joking with the future and if you fail to grab these young ones who have the enthusiasm and that flair to pursue their academic dream, you are limiting the future opportunities that they would have used to grow themselves and as well as society.
“I believe very strongly that what we have come here to celebrate is not a display of wealth but a display of interest, that believing in the young ones of today is unlocking the future of tomorrow and that is making the society a better place. Because when the youths are educated, when they are exposed and when they get entangled in the corridor of academic excellence, what you have succeeded in doing for them is to have them operate in what I call a limitless world.”
Also speaking, the Chairman of the occasion and four times Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Alabo T.O.G. Douglas, advised the management of Belemaoil Producing Limited to set up a department that would tackle environmental pollution in the course of operations.
Douglas who is also a former Managing Director of the Port Harcourt refining company, PHRC, also urged the company to not only produce crude oil but to get into refining and marketing of petroleum products.
“Today we are all aware that the environment is highly degraded and the flora and fauna completely destroyed, whilst other groups (stakeholders) may not pay attention to that problem, it is going to be more serious.
“The situation (pollution) in Ogoni happened when I was the boss of the Port Harcourt refinery and uptil today there is no solution to it. If attention is not given, it can consume the oil industry. So, I urged you to take a very serious consideration and action to set up a department to handle environmental problems, especially oil-related pollution in the course of your operations,” he advised.
Meanwhile, some recipient of the scholarship who spoke to SweetCrude Reports at the event expressed gratitude to the oil firm.
One of them said “I am really grateful to Belemaoil. They are an indigenous company, for me, this is the first time an indigenous company is doing these. The companies that actually do these are the IOCs, so it’s a very good one from Belemaoil and they should keep it up,” says Mrs. Salome Datubo, a beneficiary in the postgraduate level.
“I did not write any exams for this scholarship, in most scholarship you write exams and still don’t get it, but this one no exams yet it is real. I think the scholarship is balanced because I can see the haves and the haves not as beneficiaries too.
“I sincerely commend Belemaoil for this scholarship especially with the current recession in the country,” says undergraduate beneficiary, Master Desire Amabibi, a level 300 mechanical engineering student at the Rivers State University.