President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday in Abuja presented cheques to the first set of beneficiaries from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) also known as the student loan scheme.
The president said the student loan was key to fighting poverty and aligned with his administration’s commitment to inclusiveness and assured sufficient funding to sustain the programme.
“Democracy is all about inclusiveness. Our target is to build a society on successful inclusiveness,” he said. He added that education was the greatest weapon against poverty in any society, which he said was essential for vision, development, and successfully combating insecurity, including terrorism and banditry.
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The president presented cheques to students from each of Nigeria’s six geo-political zones.
Akintunde Sawyer, executive secretary, NELFUND, announced that N32 billion was currently available for disbursement to kick-start the programme. He said since the portal opened on May 25, 164,000 students have registered, with 103,000 applying for loans.
He said the initiative, which became law on April 3, 2024, as the Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) Act, aimed at empowering Nigerian youths by providing fair, transparent funding and removing financial barriers to educational opportunities.
“The effect of providing this opportunity for the neediest Nigerians, the people who probably will look after us, or whose decisions will impact us in our old age, cannot be underestimated.
“And I’m sure you’ve all heard that fortune favours the brave and this courageous move will bring fortune not just to the President, but to the entire nation,” said Sawyer.
He, however, decried the absence of data for determining credit search, saying this was hampering NELFUND’s ability to determine an indigent applicant.
He also noted that applicants from the northern part of Nigeria were more, as most states in the southern parts doubted the take-off of the scheme.
He said NELFund relies on applicants’ bank verification number (BVN), national identification number (NIN) among others and back-end data of educational institutions to determine successful applicants
Read also: Student loan disbursement to commence in 20 days — Sawyer
Lucky Emonefe, president, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), said Nigerian students were happy that the student loan, which was once a dream, had become reality.
“It was first a Bill, then an Act and today the president has launched and disbursed it. We are very proud of this. We as Nigerian students will call it a new dawn in the education sector.”
