Ogoni Scholarship Fund, under Kiisi Trust Foundation, has granted 346 scholarships to undergraduates of Ogoni extraction in tertiary institutions across Nigeria.
At its maiden initiation in 2018, the fund started with just 18 awards of N150,000 per scholar specifically to final-year Ogoni undergraduates across Nigeria to support their dissertation projects.
In the expanded scope this year, 124 second-year students, 23 third-year students, and 199 final-year students were awarded the scholarship.
Former House of Representatives member, Honorable Uchechukwu Onyea-gucha, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Kiisi Trust, said the Trust which gave birth to the Ogoni Scholarship Fund was created in the 2009 Wiwa vs. Shell lawsuit that awarded the plain-tiffs $15.5 million,of which $5 million was set aside for the creation of the Kiisi Trust.
At the time of that settlement, the Ogoni Plaintiffs urged that Kiisi Trust be cherished and nourished by Ogoni people to stand as a legacy of the labours of our heroes past, the name Kiisi standing for progress in Ogoni.
At the presentation of the scholarship award certificates in Port Harcourt to the 2020 awardees who have already received their first payments, Onyeagucha said:“The commitment to this scholarship is informed by the role education plays as a vital investment for human and economic development.
“This scheme aims to become a beacon for Ogoni scholars with the thirst for education and willingness to improve their lives and society at large. Scholars must therefore be committed to their studies and come out to forge good careers and competencies that would make them role models to Ogoni generations yet unborn.”
Former Vice-Chancellor, Rivers State University and Kiisi Trust Board member, Prof Barineme Fakae said, “The transparent process for selection sets a CGPA of 2.5 for universities or its equivalent in other approved tertiary institutions as minimum grade students must maintain through the duration of studies. Anyone who falls short of that loses the benefit for the next year’s payment of scholarship.”
A 2020 Ogoni Scholarship Fund scholar, Leson Bare, a Laboratory Science student of the Rivers State University who attested to the transparent selection process on the scholarship said, “This is a call to redouble efforts in my studies. I will take full advantage in the aim, not only to come out impressive on graduation but to make proud our heroes past who paid the huge price to give us this opportunity by becoming successful and a true role model to Ogonis yet unborn”.

By: Victor Tew