The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has alerted the public to a rising scam involving fake postgraduate scholarship offers, okay.ng reports.
Mrs. Seledi Thompson-Wakama, Director of Corporate Affairs at the NDDC, disclosed in a statement issued in Port Harcourt on Sunday that fraudsters have been targeting unsuspecting individuals by soliciting money under the guise of securing scholarship placements.
According to Mrs. Thompson-Wakama, the scammers send fraudulent emails from addresses such as [email protected], falsely claiming to represent the NDDC’s ‘Board Registry.’ These emails invite recipients to participate in a fabricated document verification and authentication exercise purportedly scheduled for May 19 to May 21 at Bishop Oluwole Street, Victoria Island, Lagos.
“The attention of the NDDC has been drawn to fraudulent emails and messages sent to applicants of the commission’s Postgraduate Foreign Scholarship Programme,” she said. She emphasized that the NDDC has no affiliation with this so-called selection process and warned the public to be cautious.
She further clarified that all legitimate communications regarding the NDDC scholarship programme are conducted solely through the official NDDC portal: www.scholarship.nddc.gov.ng. “Applicants are strongly advised to disregard any unsolicited messages requesting money, invitation, sensitive information, or offering scholarship placements outside of the official NDDC procedures,” Mrs. Thompson-Wakama added.
The NDDC urged anyone who receives such fraudulent emails to report them immediately to law enforcement agencies for investigation. The commission also encouraged Nigerians interested in its programmes to use only official NDDC communication channels and verify information through www.nddc.gov.ng.