The European Union says it has spent over N2.6bn sponsoring Nigerian students to foreign universities in the last five years.
The EU Ambassador to Nigeria, Ketil Karlsen, said this at the departure orientation for the 2019 Erasmus+ Scholarship Awardees in Abuja on Thursday.
Karlsen explained that for this year, the EU picked 40 Nigerian students out of about 1, 000 that applied for the scholarship.
He said the awardees would be attending the best universities in Greece, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Czech Republic, Belgium, France, Poland, the United Kingdom, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Germany.
The envoy said the cost of the entire programme and travel expenses would be taken care of by the EU.
He said, “This is part of the global Erasmus programme that cost €14.7bn. It has supported thousands of scholars, thousands of researchers coming to Europe. In the case of Nigeria in particular, the European Union has invested €6.6m since 2014. That is equivalent to N2.6bn in supporting young people.”
Karlsen asked the beneficiaries to be good ambassadors of Nigeria and ensure that they contribute to the growth of the country.
The envoy said the programme was an evidence that the EU was not against the migration of Africans to Europe but argued that migration must be done properly and legally.
He said the EU had seen an increase in legal migration and a drop in illegal migration in the last few months.
Karlsen stated, “We support Nigeria with over €600m (N243bn) in different development programmes around the country. We engage in political issues, we are the biggest trading partner of Nigeria.”