West Africa Oil and Gas Development Scholarship Is Asking Students To Pay a VerifyID Fee Before They Can Apply

The West Africa Oil and Gas Development scholarship for Nigerian undergraduates says you must pay a “VerifyID” fee before applying. Here’s what to check before you send any moneywest-africa-oil-and-gas-scholarship-verifyid-payment-warning

Several scholarship blogs are currently pushing a post about the “West Africa Oil and Gas Development Undergraduate Scholarship,” also called WESTAFRICAOIL, promising ₦250,000 a year plus a free laptop to Nigerian undergraduates. Buried inside the eligibility list on almost every one of these posts is one line: you need your UME or UTME number “fully verified,” and “VerifyID charges apply” before you can even apply. That one line is the whole reason for this post.

A real scholarship does not ask you for money to check if you qualify. Selection committees verify your documents for free, that’s literally their job. The moment a “scholarship” tells you to pay something before you’re even considered, sha, that’s your cue to slow down and ask questions.

What is being advertises

The pitch going round says WESTAFRICAOIL is funded by oil and gas companies operating in West Africa, and that it gives undergraduates in Nigerian public universities ₦250,000 a year plus a laptop. Some versions call it renewable if your grades stay good. Some say it’s for 100 and 200 level students only. The application portal being shared is scholarship.westafricaoil.com.

What the posts claim you get:

• ₦250,000 per year
• A laptop
• “Exposure” to the oil and gas sector and internship opportunities

What the posts say you must do before applying:

• Be a Nigerian citizen currently living in Nigeria
• Be a full-time undergraduate at an approved Nigerian university
• Have your UME or UTME number “fully verified,” with a charge attached, before your application is accepted

That last point is not a small detail. It’s the actual gatekeeper. No matter how good your grades are, without paying that fee first, the posts say you cannot go further.

Why this looks like a scam pattern, not just an unusual rule

I searched for WESTAFRICAOIL as an organisation on its own, outside these scholarship blog posts, and nothing came up. No news coverage from a real Nigerian or West African outlet, no listing among known oil and gas bodies, nothing from NNPC, PTDF, or any regulator mentioning a group by that name. The “about” text on some of these posts claims it’s a “statutory body” from 1993 tied to a “Petroleum Act,” but that claim only shows up inside the scholarship promo copy itself, never anywhere independent.

A few things worth noticing:

• The exact same paragraphs, word for word, appear across more than ten different “scholarship” websites, all linking to the same portal. That’s how scam listings spread online, not how a real corporate scholarship gets announced.
• Nobody selected in a past round is named or quoted anywhere.
• The only concrete “requirement” that stands between you and applying is a payment.

None of this proves fraud with one hundred percent certainty. But it matches, point for point, the pattern of scholarship scams that have targeted Nigerian students before: real-sounding name, vague sponsor, urgent deadline, and a small fee dressed up as a “verification” or “processing” charge.

If you already started an application on that portal and it asked you to pay: stop before you send anything. Do not enter your card details or transfer money to “verify” your UME or UTME number. A genuine scholarship checks your JAMB and school records through your institution or JAMB itself, at no cost to you.

How to check any scholarship before you pay anything

• Search the sponsor’s name plus the word “scam” and see what comes up from other students, not just from the scholarship’s own website.
• Check if the same exact scholarship text is copied across many random blogs with no original reporting. That’s a warning sign on its own.
• Call or check with your school’s scholarship office. If a company were really sponsoring undergraduates at your school, your school would usually know about it.
• Remember this rule: real scholarships pay you, they don’t collect payment from you to “verify” you first.
• The West Africa Oil and Gas Development (WESTAFRICAOIL) undergraduate scholarship being shared online asks Nigerian students to pay a “VerifyID” fee before their application is even accepted. No independent record of the organisation exists outside these promo posts, and the same text is copied across many scholarship blogs pointing to one portal, scholarship.westafricaoil.com. Do not pay any fee to “verify” your UME or UTME number for this or any scholarship. If in doubt, check with your school’s scholarship office first.