It was excitement galore in Anambra State, not only for the beneficiaries and their parents and guardians, but also for the 2027 presidential hopeful on the platform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Peter Obi, as Senator Victor Umeh, representing Anambra Central Senatorial District, granted scholarships to 326 indigent undergraduates and postgraduates of higher institutions.
Speaking after the launch of Fidelity Bank’s specific beneficiary fund transfer app, Obi said the senator’s magnanimity differs from present-day leaders who fail to invest in the future of children.
Obi, who handed over a specimen of a Fidelity Bank cheque to the beneficiaries under the Senator Victor Umeh Education Foundation, described education as the basic need a child should be given as a primary way of developing a nation.
According to Obi, who recently joined the ADC to seek its presidential ticket for the 2027 race, education breaks barriers and could enable someone to dine and wine with one’s role models, as he did.
Addressing the beneficiaries and their parents and guardians, the benefactor of the Senator Victor Umeh Education Foundation said the scheme has no political undertone, observing that the idea crystallised from ten persons who came to him for financial assistance about 27 years ago for their children’s future education.
Umeh recalled that his magnanimity has resulted in producing 2,320 graduate awardees who genuinely deserve it and have become medical doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, engineers, nurses, and more.
He said he emulated Obi, who uses his personal funds to provide educational infrastructure and welfare for teaching and non-teaching staff members in the education industry across different denominations.
The Senator stressed that the scholarship award is his own type of empowerment programme for youths, explaining that through education, people would be liberated from ignorance and become enablers of development.
The Senator, who recently left the Labour Party (LP) for the ADC, said he rose from using his personal money to award scholarships to using his constituency project allocations to sponsor free education for children and youths as future nation-builders.
Earlier, in his remarks, the Director-General of the Senator Victor Umeh Education Foundation, Rev. Fr Val Uzoezie, said a total sum of N37 million was spent as a scholarship grant to indigent students in 2024, while the sum was increased to N64 million for the current 326 beneficiaries.
Uzoezie, who spoke through the Secretary-General of the Foundation, Sir Maurice Anetoh, pointed out that the selection was done transparently, as beneficiaries were nominated from the 58 communities in Anambra Central Senatorial District, with two persons each nominated, while stakeholders, including clergy, made up the remaining number to reach 326.
Uzoezie confirmed that, so far, 2,320 graduates have passed through the scholarship since it took off in 1999.
It was gathered that Fidelity Bank officials transferred the said money to each of the beneficiaries while they were still at the venue, as they echoed, “Alert, vam! vam!”
Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries, Mrs. Nnajide Nma, a first-class nursing graduate from Millennium School of Nursing who was pregnant last year and named her son “Victor” as a keepsake of appreciation to the benefactor, said Umeh’s gesture has lifted her family.
Her mother, Mrs. Nnajidenma, who described the Senator as God-sent, prayed that God should keep Umeh alive so he could continue to touch lives, especially those of less privileged persons.
Among the beneficiaries are Chioma Malachy Onwurah from Anambra South Senatorial District, graduate architect Nkiru from Umuokpu, and a blind student of the Sociology Department of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nkechi Nwafor, and Okoye Sylvia.
Moreover, a stakeholder from Enugu, who gave his name as Anselem Chiamogu, described Umeh’s gesture as an act by a politician with a human face.
