From Victor Edozie, in Port Harcourt
The Petroleum Technology Development Fund, PTDF said it has commenced interview for the 746 candidates shortlisted for its Msc and PhD Post Graduate Overseas Scholaprship Scheme in the 6 states that make up the South South Geo-political zone of Nigeria.
The affected states are Rivers, Cross River, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Edo and Bayelsa.
A Deputy Manager in PTDF and the Port Harcourt Team Lead that oversees the South South Zone of the scholarship scheme, Mr Peter Egheneji who disclosed this in Port Harcourt on Thursday at the PTDF Skill Acquisition Center, Igwurita in Ikwerre local Government of Rivers State, the venue of the interview said the interview is part of the process of selecting the candidates that will be qualified for the 2026/2027 overseas scholarship scheme of PTDF.
Mr Egheneji said the programme is carried out concurrently across the six Geo-political zone of the country saying that Port Harcourt center is the venue for the South South Geo-political zone.
Egheneji said out of 746 candidates shortlisted 503 is for Msc degree while 243 is for PhD in oil and gas related courses.
He said, ” We are having for this week 503 candidates in the Port Harcourt zone while for next week we are going to have the PhD which is 243 candidates short listed for the Port Harcourt. This week is only Msc for the Port Harcourt. The program is meant to provide support in form of scholarship for Nigerians that are qualified so that they will be sponsored for the scholarship program in the oil and gas industry.
“Part of the mandate of PTDF is to provide scholarship and bursaries for the development of oil and gas so this is one of the activities. We have this program in the 6 Geo-political zones of Nigeria. We have the south south Geo-political zone , south East Geo-political zone , South-West Geo-political zone, we also have the North Central Geo political zone, the North East and North West.
“The criteria that is used to short list the applicants includes your grades. We look at their Ordinary levels, we look at their first degrees and look at also the proposal they write. So we want to give best training opportunities to those that will go for the scholarship. So their grading system, for instance somebody with 1st Class degree for example is going to be given a higher grade compared with somebody that has 2.1”
“So when all those things are accumulated in the algorithm that our system use they will select the best among the applicants.
When you are qualified for the scholarship you will sign a bound that after the program you are going to come back. You actually don’t have that latitude to decide that you are not of going to come back because the successful candidates are required to sign a bound for the scholarship.”
He said that the scholarship is one hundred percent funded by PTDF adding that there are basic criteria that the management of PTDF is going to use to select the total number of candidates for the scholarship.
Professor Godwin Chukwu, an affiliate Professor in the Emerald Energy department of University of Port Harcourt who heads the interview panel said that the panel is reviewing applications for PTDF scholars for the 2026 overseas scholarship for Nigerian applicants who have chosen Port Harcourt as their center.
He said that the panel is interviewing Masters degree applicants that have gotten their first degrees in different disciplines that are about doing Masters in areas that could be of benefit to the oil and gas operations in Nigeria from Tuesday to Friday.
” This is a four day program that we were handling starting from Tuesday, April , 8th ending on Friday , April 10th. We reviewed an average of one hundred applicants on a daily basis and we hope to complete this possibly on Friday if we don’t finish on Friday we make sure we complete the process on Saturday.
“We have different criterias. We looked at whatever the students have done in their under graduate, how the students can interface that particular background and knowledge to doing a Masters in an area that will be beneficial in oil and gas operations in Nigeria,” he said.
Professor Chukwu said the job of the panel stops at reviewing what they see and recommend to PTDF who he said will take it up from their.
“There should be a middle ground for recommendation but it’s left for PTDF to decide on what they want. But our recommendation should be something that should guide them in their final decisions,” he pointed out.
One of the shortlisted candidates who was interviewed by the panel , Blessing Okafor said that the application process was very seamless saying that she just got into the website and uploaded all her documents.
Okafor, a graduate of Chemical Engineering said that she applied to study advance chemical engineering in the overseas scholarship so that she will be able to gain competency and build up her knowledge base capacity as a chemical engineer.
“To build up a knowledge base capacity will enable me solve particular problem that is related to oil and gas industry. Iam personally looking at natural gas processing system because we have lots of natural gas from our oil wells. So wells have more natural gas volume than crude oil so being able to utilize that natural gas and be able to also increase our economic growth is my target,” she said.
Another candidate, Ifeoluwa Adetodu who also spoke with our reporter said she is going to apply everything that she learnt to breach the gap in the oil and gas industry.
“I worked in private oil and gas industry and I noticed that there are lapses that when operations fails it’s not that the equipment is failing it’s not because of technical incompetent it’s rather because there is poor communication , weak management and a lot of things that can be avoided.
“So I will use the course that I am going to study to address this issues. I want to commend the PTDF for the opportunity given to us to be short listed for the program,” she noted.
