Erastus Akingbola, OON

In continuation of its determination to boost the manpower pool for the Nigerian economy, Intercontinental Bank Plc will on Wednesday present scholarship cheques worth N5million to some students of Ondo State origin as first part of the N50 million Intercontinental Bank - Ondo State Scholarship Scheme which will be launched that day. About hundred students will benefit from this first batch.The bank would continue to honour this award to the beneficiaries annually until they graduate, while more batches would be added annually.

Also, in line with its corporate social responsibility policy and strategy the bank has completed a 1000-seater Lecture Hall and an ultramodern students hostel for Adekunle Ajasin University (AAU) Akungba Akoko in Ondo State worth over N150million.

Intercontinental Bank State Scholarship Scheme is fundamentally the bank’s way of partnering with State Governments in enhancing access to quality education. Hitherto the bank has over 1500 students from 13 states namely Bayelsa, Edo, Kwara, Anambra, Ekiti, Kogi, Niger, Osun, Lagos, Jigawa, Kaduna, Ebonyi and Sokoto States enjoying its scholarships and many states have been lined up for commencement later this year.

This number, is in addition to the annual Intercontinental Diamond Fund (IDF) Scholarship Programme targeted at the wards of the customers across the country. The number of beneficiaries in this programme is about 500 bringing the cumulative number of beneficiaries of Intercontinental Bank’s Scholarship to over 2000 across the country.

The bank in a statement, explained why it chose to invest in educational sector, saying that the involvement in education is deeper than giving scholarships. “We are strongly committed to helping in the building of a world-class educational system in the country. We are concerned with the continuous decline in the quality of graduates from our tertiary educational institutions”.

The bank is also concerned about the absence of world class facilities required for qualitative academic endeavour in Nigerian universities which has not only resulted in the upsurge of social vices, but also in the appalling quality of research and innovations in the universities.

According to the Bank’s Group Chief Executive, Dr. Erastus Akingbola, the deplorable situation, is largely the reason Intercontinental Bank has and will continue to intervene directly in the provision of world class students’ hostel infrastructure and lecture halls in schools. To date, the bank has donated such projects to 18 tertiary institutions in Nigeria and about five more are currently underway for commissioning later in the year.

In the past five years Intercontinental Bank, has spent over N1billion on this crucial sector alone.