12th May, 2017
The State of Israel is planning to award scholarship to over 100 children among the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Adamawa, Israeli Ambassador, Mr Guy Feldman said on Friday.
Feldman disclosed this during a courtesy visit to the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission (NCPC), Headquarters in Abuja.
The Ambassador said that the embassy delegation met with the Gov. Bindo Jibrilla of Adamawa and discussed the area of agricultural projects and how to invest in the children.
He noted 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.
“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,” Feldman said.
In his remark, Mr Gideon Behar, Special Envoy for Africa, Israeli Government, said that the relationship between Israel and Nigeria needs to be strengthened so that both countries would gain from each other.
He also said that there are a lot to be done in the areas of agriculture, food security, water, education, health and also economic development of the country.
“We really want to strengthen the relationship between Nigeria and Israel.
“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,’’ he said.
Behar advised that there should be a dialogue to find a mechanism to assure safety of pilgrims to and from the Holy Land.
He promised to bring the same company from Israel that was working on their data to also come and work with the commission so that there can be a free exchange of information.
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.
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“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.
“We have 47 people from Rivers state rejected with no explanation and some of them have never been to Israel before.
NCPC boss promised that the commission would never support any Nigerian to abscond either to Israel or to any other nation of the world.
“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.’’