SAN FRANCISCO, May 12, (THEWILL) – The State of Israel has revealed its intention to award educational scholarship to over 100 children among the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Adamawa,
This was disclosed on Friday by the Israeli Ambassador, Guy Feldman during a courtesy visit to the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission (NCPC), Headquarters in Abuja.
The Ambassador said that the embassy delegation met with the Governor Bindo Jibrilla of Adamawa and discussed the area of agricultural projects and how to invest in the children revealing that the embassy went all the way to observe the Israeli’s independence celebrations and organised a football league among the IDP kids.
“We celebrated our independence day but not as usual,” he said.
“We cancelled the celebration and took all the funds and organised a football league in Adamawa with kids from the IDP camps.
“We are going to send hundreds of kids to school with scholarship. We talked about agriculture projects and get to the attention of the kids because they deserve a future. We should all invest in them.”
Similarly, Gideon Behar, Special Envoy for Africa, Israeli Government, said the relationship between Israel and Nigeria needs to be strengthened so that both countries would gain from each other.
“We really want to strengthen the relationship between Nigeria and Israel,” he said.
“We think there is a lot to be done in the fields of agriculture, food security, water, education, health and also economic development.
“We are fully aware of the big challenges of Nigeria; we really love to be of assistance in these challenges.”
Reponding, Rev. Tor Uja, Executive Secretary, NCPC, urged the embassy for visa procurement process as the commission was still having some challenges securing visas for intending pilgrims.
“We still request for assistance in our visa procurement process, we are still having a lot of difficulties; sometimes there are visa rejections that do not have explanations,” he said.
“We will be happy if the Israeli laws are amended to take care of absconders that anybody who absconds should be returned to Nigeria. If people need to live and work in Israel, they should apply and be formally accepted. We will support them to do that.
“In Nigeria we are trying to make legal adjustments to ensure that people who guarantee any absconder will pay a heavy fine and will face prosecution in Nigerian courts.”
