Fidelia Soriwei, Abuja
The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has dismissed allegations that the Federal Government’s student loan scheme favours students based on political affiliation, describing the claim as unfounded.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, said the electronic application system was designed to assess eligible Nigerian students based on established requirements and had no mechanism for identifying their political affiliations.
Sawyerr spoke on Sunday during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, questioning how political membership could be established among student loan applicants.
“I have not heard this allegation, but I can tell you that it’s a completely ridiculous idea that the administration of Bola Tinubu is focused on trying to fund people who support the party. We are talking about students; many of them are yet to vote, some of them are going to be voting for the first time, [and] many of them are not party members.
“How, in any event, do we determine who is a party member and who isn’t? Even if you are running a manual process, how do you do that? You can’t. It’s unlikely to yield you any result.”
Sawyerr explained that applications are submitted electronically and require basic academic and personal information, including the applicant’s name and matriculation number.
“It is a process you have to apply for this loan electronically. If you don’t have a name, you can’t apply for this loan. You provide your matriculation number; you have to be in a public institution,” he said.
He said demand for the student loan had been “overwhelming”, but maintained that applications were processed according to eligibility requirements rather than political, ethnic or religious considerations.
“We have a system that is focused on people who are Nigerians and meet the standard. The system doesn’t recognise your gender. There is no bias in the system at the front end or the back end.
“This is a system that doesn’t care whether you are of one tribe or the other. This system does not have a view or an opinion on whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, or an African traditional religionist; it doesn’t want to know.”
NELFUND administers interest-free education loans to eligible Nigerian students enrolled in public tertiary institutions, covering institutional fees and monthly upkeep allowances.
The agency also recently warned students and the public against a circulating image claiming that President Bola Tinubu had approved life imprisonment for graduates who failed to repay their student loans, describing the claim as fake news.
The clarification comes amid growing public interest in the student loan scheme and concerns over how applications are assessed and approved.
