Luz Neema Foundation (LNF) Scholarships for Nigerian students

(First Posted: 30th July 2012) - Luz Neema Foundation (LNF) Scholarships for Nigerian students

Course(s) Offered: Any course
Course Level: Undergraduate (bachelors)
Provider: Luz Neema Foundation (LNF)
Country to Study in: Canada

Scholarship Description
IMPORTANT NOTE (1st August 2012):
PLEASE SEE IMPORTANT NOTICE BELOW BEFORE READING THIS SCHOLARSHIP ADVERT. THIS SCHOLARSHIP CALL MAY BE A FRAUD!

Nigeria is blessed with great academic resources and usually without a medium of harnessing expression. The scholarship program gives the opportunity to address these areas.

Luz Neema Foundation (LNF) is an NGO (non-governmental organisation) and also not intended for profit, which has been legally constituted by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) of Nigeria and the Ontario Corporation of Canada for the development of communities, as well as the grassroots. It is funded by the Canadian government, corporate organisations and individuals.

Although LNF was incorporated with CAC since the 6th of October, 2011, full operations commenced from the 1st of March, 2012 with an invitation for the general public to apply for a scholarship to Canada.

Eligibility
Newly graduated Secondary School Certificate holders between the ages of 16 to 19

Selection criteria:
All eligible students are selected through their school leaving certificate results. After which the students are further tested in written and oral examinations. All selections are by merit alone.

Eligible groups
Every student with the stipulated age as well as minimum of 5 credit. (English & Mathematics Inclusive)

Participating Institutions
Any accredited Canadian institution of higher learning

Fields of study
Any course of study

Number of awards
There will be 5 finalists. But only one scholarship would be awarded per year

Sponsorship duration
Total duration of four years of study

Scholarship benefits
LNF would only offer tuition only scholarships worth N6m (six million naira) or $40,000 (forty thousand dollars) over a period of 4 years.

IMPORTANT: The scholarship covers tuition only. Feeding, textbooks, boarding etc is not inclusive.

Method of Application
Procedure to Enrol in our Scholarship Programme:
  1. Download and Print the Application Form here
  2. Fill in all the required infomation.
  3. Pay Processing Fee of N5,000 at Diamond Bank:
    Acct No: 0024923560.
    Acct Name: Luz Neema Foundation
  4. Ensure that scan copy of bank draft is sent to us via this email: info@luzneema.org , for confirmation.
  5. Submit the form along with 2 passport photos, Secondary School Transcript, SSCE, WAEC or NECO result, Scratch card (WAEC or NECO) and a copy of Birth Certificate on or before September 21, 2012.
  6. Note: The Form will be available from July 2nd to August 31st
Note: Only Shortlisted Candidates will be contacted for interview.
Since the selection is intended to be extremely competitive, individuals can re-apply the following year for a chance at succeeding.
The intention here is to encourage equal opportunity to interested students, while the final selections of 5 finalists are awarded the scholarship.
The forms become available between last week of June till middle of August every year.

Application Deadline: middle of August every year
Open to International students: No (ONLY Nigerians)

Resource: Frequently Asked Questions

More Scholarship Information and Application

IMPORTANT NOTICE

(01/08/2012) - Update: Luz Neema Foundation (LNF) Scholarships for Nigerian students

Following our above post on 30th July, 2012; we got comments and mails from readers complaining about the money requested by this scholarship scheme. We thus set out to confirm the validity or invalidity, as the case may be, of the "Luz Neema Foundation" and its scholarship program from the 2 government agencies (Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria and the Ontario Corporation of Canada) it claims to be registered with. We also promised to make public whatever responses we get from any of these agencies.

We have received two responses to our inquiry from two official Canadian government agencies - the Ontario Corporation of Canada (i.e. Corporations Canada) and Service Ontario. We received the responses yesterday 31st July, 2012. We are yet to receive any response from the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria. True to our word but especially to protect the interests of all students - both home and international - who visit this site, we're making our findings public below, as we'd promised. We here reproduce the two responses we got, verbatim. Please read on:

The first response we got (from ServiceOntario):
CISinquiry, (MGS) <CISinquiry@ontario.ca>
Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 5:22 PM
To: xxxxxxx[at]studyandscholarships[dot]com

Hello xxxx,

Thank you for contacting ServiceOntario.

When a not-for-profit organization decides to incorporate in Canada, they make the decision whether to be a federal corporation or provincial. A corporation cannot be both federal and provincial.

We can confirm that LUZ NEEMA FOUNDATION is an Ontario (provincial) not-for-profit corporation. The term they use, "Ontario Corporation of Canada" is incorrect.

If you wish to review the current information on the public record, you can order a Corporation Profile Report.

A detailed explanation of the Corporation Profile Report is available on-line, please visit:
http://www.ontario.ca/en/business/STEL02_163368

There are three (3) methods to obtain the Corporation Profile Report.

To obtain the report on-line via a private sector service provider, please visit:
http://www.ontario.ca/en/services_for_business/STEL02_039947

To obtain the report in person at:
Ministry of Government Services
Central Production and Verification Services Branch
375 University Avenue, Suite 200
Toronto, ON, M5G 2M2

To obtain the report by mail, please write to:
Ministry of Government Services
Central Production and Verification Services Branch
393 University Avenue, Suite 200
Toronto, ON, M5G 2M2

The processing fee by mail is $12, provide us with a cheque/money order payable to the 'Minister of Finance'.

Should you require additional information please call our helpline at:
(416) 314 8880 or 1-800-361-3223 (toll free Ontario).

Vanessa
Inquiry Officer
Contact Centre Services Branch
ServiceOntario - making it easier
Visit us at: www.serviceontario.ca


The second response we got (from Corporations Canada):
RE: Enquiry: Authenticity of a corporate body
xxxxxx.xxxxxx@ic.gc.ca
Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 3:59 PM
to: me

Good morning,

Thank you for your e-mail date July 31, 2012. To answer your question about if a business is incorporated, I did a search on the Corporations Canada web site for the name you provided and nothing came up. I also did a search for provincial corporation and nothing came up for that name either.

Question 1: No search found for Luz Neema Foundation (LNF) Scholarships for Nigerian students
You can try this yourself if you have a different name or corporation number or business number when you want to find out if a Not for Profit Organization or a for profit corporation is incorporated federally.

https://www.ic.gc.ca/app/scr/cc/CorporationsCanada/fdrlCrpSrch.html?locale=en_CA

As for question 2: you would need to ask the question to a legal counsel.

Regards,
Brenda Lovett
Information Officer | Agente d'information
Corporations Canada | Corporations Canada
Small Business, Tourism and Marketplace Services | Services axés sur le marché, le tourisme et la petite entreprise
Industry Canada | Industrie Canada
365 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa ON  K1A 0C8 | 365, avenue Laurier ouest, Ottawa ON  K1A 0C8
xxxxxx.xxxxxx@ic.gc.ca
Telephone | Téléphone 613-866-333-5556
Facsimile | Télécopieur 613-941-4803
Teletypewriter | Téléimprimeur 1-866-694-8389
Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada


Having read through the responses we got from the 2 agencies, it seems safe to deduce the following:
  1. That the Luz Neema Foundation (LNF) is truly registered with the Canadian government as an Ontario (provincial) not-for-profit corporation; although we cannot confirm same with the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria as they are yet to respond to our query; and
  2. That the validity or otherwise of their scholarship program is an issue that ONLY a legal counsel can adjudicate on.
From us at Study & Scholarships, we advise that as there are several scholarship programs without any request for money attached, students who feel bothered by the money requested, should consider other non-fee-demanding scholarship schemes. The reason we sent inquiries in the first place was to prevent any defrauding of students that visit our site.

In our opinion, there are several alternative scholarships to apply to (without any request for money), and we STRONGLY advise that all students apply to these other ones. Although we have no evidence to firmly advise against applying, however, we would NOT be held liable if any student eventually loses his money.

Goodluck to all hardworking students in Nigeria and abroad!

5 comments:

  1. This sure smells very foul. If u have 6million to sponsor someone,why take 5000naira from each candidate.if 1000pple apply,you would have made 5million naira.wer den lies d scholarship?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you dear. Lots of legalized fraudlants. Requesting 5,000 and u say its a non profit organization. I'll advice the govt. Begin looking into all these so called non profit org.

      Delete
  2. Hi all, we at Study & Scholarships understand exactly how you feel about this post. We'd launched a little inquiry into the authenticity of this scholarship, days ago, even before we contemplated publishing it.

    If the truth be said, we did not intend to publish it until the conclusion of our inquiry. However, a little technical misunderstanding led to the erroneous publication (i.e before concluding our own inquiry). Since it'd been already published, albeit erroneously, we decided to let it be BUT rather added the 2 WARNINGS in the post.

    Although it sure does NOT sound right, even to us, to demand any money from any student for any scholarship program, we still intend to conclude our own little inquiry and publish the relevant responses here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Meanwhile, we still advise that since the deadline for the scholarship is in middle-August, that you exercise a little patience in applying, since they are demanding N5000.00, which is very unusual.

      Since the Foundation claims that it "...has been legally constituted by the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria and the Ontario Corporation of Canada for the development of communities"; we will update any and all correspondences from either government agencies here. Please bear with us!

      Delete
  3. Having gotten responses (see post above) from the 2 Canadian govt agencies we wrote to, it seems safe to deduce the following:

    a) that the Luz Neema Foundation (LNF) is truly registered with the Canadian government as an Ontario (provincial) not-for-profit corporation; although we cannot confirm same with the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria as they are yet to respond to our query; and

    b) that the validity or otherwise of their scholarship program is an issue that ONLY a legal counsel can adjudicate on.

    However, since there are several scholarship programs without any request for money attached, students should consider other non-fee-demanding scholarship schemes.

    ReplyDelete