A former Director of Communications under President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Jackson Ude has granted scholarship worth N8million to eight undergraduate beneficiaries in Nkporo, Ohafia Local Government of Abia State.
The widely-travelled Journalist has also promised to grant another N8million scholarship at the end of the year 2021.
He said the eight students were selected based on academic excellence and hardship.
Speaking to Journalists recently, Ude, a U.S-based Nigerian-American said next batch of the scholarship would come under Mary and Ude-Jack Foundation, a foundation he is setting up in remembrance of his late parents.
Ude said his parents were so much in love with education but never had an opportunity to acquire formal education due to financial difficulty.
“My parents loved education, but they never acquired the formal education because they were poor and did not have any support to do that,” he said.
According to Ude, the scholarship would go a long way in assisting beneficiaries who are mostly from less privileged background to continue in their studies without worries of how to pay school fees, buy books and feed.
“I have been in that situation where I struggled to go to school daily. I know what it is like. My parents also know how painful it is to want to go to school and don’t have the means. This is just a way to ease burdens people from my part of Nigeria go through.”
Ude said he is using the Mary and Ude-Jack Foundation to reach out to not only students but the under privileged citizens who might be in need of support for Medicals, Education and Small-Scale Businesses.
He called on philanthropists and public and good-spirited citizens of Abia state and other parts of the country to assist students and people in need so they can realize their dreams.
In his remark, Uchenna Kalu, a youth leader in Nkporo, Ohafia Local Government appreciated Ude’s kind gestures.
Kalu who recalled the many gestures Ude has done to Nkporo and other places, said the scholarship would go a long way in ameliorating the sufferings Nkporo students go through in their pursuit of tertiary education.
He urged students not to be wasteful of the opportunity but to make good use of the scholarship.