Dangote Granite Mines, a Dangote Group company, has given scholarships to about 60 students in five host communities.
Mr Francis Awowole-Browne, Media Personnel, Dangote Industries Ltd., announced this in a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday.
According to Awowole-Browne, the scholarship is part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility to support educational growth in its host communities.
Mr Ebenezer Ali, Dangote Projects’ Director of Human Assets Management, stated that the scholarship was intended to help the beneficiaries’ parents ease the burden their children’s schooling placed on them.
Ali added that the scholarship was part of the agreements reached with the leadership of the host communities during the signing of the Community Development Agreement.
He said the move was to ensure its host communities were not left behind in areas of education and infrastructural development. Ali urged the beneficiaries to face their education as they would be given automatic employment if they performed well academically.
He thanked the communities’ leaders for creating an atmosphere of peace in the area and for showing the understanding that has led to the tranquility enjoyed by the company and the communities.
He assured the communities of the company’s readiness to do its own part of the agreement in ensuring that it identified with the people at all times.
“I charge the communities’ leaders to continue to support the management of Dangote Granite Mines by maintaining peace,” he said.
An Ijebu Igbo Monarch, the Sopenlukale of Oke Sopen, Oba Adesesan Yussuf, thanked the management of Dangote Group for the assistance rendered to the communities.
The monarch said the scholarship indicated that the company was community friendly and committed to giving back to society hence deserving of all the support the communities could muster.
He urged the beneficiaries not to take the scholarship for granted and see it as a show of love for the host communities.
He urged residents to keep the peace, stating that it was only through peace that the corporation could better serve the areas.
Miss Grace Aregbe of Tai Solarin University of Education appreciated the company for the generous gesture. She stated that the scholarship would go a long way toward alleviating the financial difficulties they would face in school.
She pledged that the beneficiaries would not let the firm or their parents down, and she prayed for the health of the company’s Chairman, Aliko Dangote.
