The MD/CEO of The Nigerian Education Loan Fund, (NELFUND), Akintunde Sawyerr has said that over 1.3 million Nigerian students have so far benefitted from the federal government’s student loan scheme, highlighting the fund’s growing impact on access to tertiary education across the country.
“I think for the first time in Nigeria—or certainly the first time in a very long time—people are starting to believe that you can actually benefit from government policies without knowing anybody. The system is totally agnostic to who you know. All you have to do is provide the right credentials, apply online, and you don’t need the help of anybody to be able to access this. I can tell you today that 1.3 million plus Nigerian students have benefited without having to have any handshake with anybody whatsoever,” he revealed.
Speaking in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, he also explained that the issue arose from an incomplete upload of student data rather than any fault in the loan approval process, stressing that NELFUND relies strictly on verified submissions from institutions before disbursement is made.
This is a following an issue surrounding Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, (LAUTECH), that emerged after media reports suggested a significant gap between the number of students who applied for support under the federal student loan scheme and those who were reportedly approved. According to the reports, around 19,000 students were said to have applied, but only a fraction of that figure was reflected in approvals, raising concerns among stakeholders about possible delays or exclusions in the process.
“What has happened is that when we got that report, we immediately contacted LAUTECH and we looked at our systems. In fact, only 5,237 students have been approved. Now, when I say approved, I mean the school has returned only 5,237 students as being eligible for us to pay the loans. We have a very strict, very robust system. I have a very strong team at NELFUND who follow the process very closely and try to ensure that no student is left behind. When we went back to LAUTECH today, they confirmed, based on the information that we provided them at the back end, that in fact they had unfortunately neglected to post the additional 15,000 students onto our system,” he explained.
He added that the fund had already engaged with LAUTECH to resolve the mismatch and ensure that all eligible students are properly captured and accounted for in the system moving forward.
“I think one thing you’ll find out is before the end of today, they would have issued a rebuttal, because it’s very important to us at NELFUND that there is trust in what we’re doing and that we don’t lose the confidence of students. That is the easiest thing to lose, given the neglect that they have faced before the advent of the Bola Tinubu administration,” he said.
Sawyerr emphasised that NELFUND only releases funds based on verified student lists submitted by institutions, not individual application.
“This is a damaging report, and as I said, before the end of today you will see a rebuttal from the institution because we provided them with the facts. 5,237 only were approved by the school for us to pay, and that’s the process we’re in.”
Addressing concerns about transparency and student refunds, the NELFUND MD/CEO explained that such cases typically arise due to timing gaps between application, verification, and disbursement cycles.
“Students apply to us for these loans. We collate the students, we verify them, or we check to ensure that they are indeed eligible. We then send that finalized list to the school. The school checks that the students are there—remember they applied online, there’s no interface between us and them. The school checks, looking at the records, whether the students that we’ve sent to them have applied and are indeed their students, they’re still alive, they’re still active, and they are still bona fide students. The school then has to send back to us, electronically, the list that they confirm. One of the things that they also have to do is ensure that the fees are correct. Okay. Now, in doing that, some schools omit some students, some students are removed from the process, but we ensure that we pay what is approved. Now, to your question very specifically about how we ensure that the students get the just benefit of this. The reality of it is that when we started the scheme a little under two years ago, you need to realize that a lot of schools started their sessions at different times. We started this in the middle of a political cycle which doesn’t necessarily rhyme with the academic session starting in the hundreds of institutions there are across this country.
“So students applied almost blindly, not knowing, you know, if their session only had a week to go, they still applied. If it had four months to go, they still applied. Now, essentially what then happened is that when a student applied and they have a deadline of the week after or two weeks later to either pay a registration fee to sit an exam or to get involved in academic classes, and the school says ‘Unless we see money, we are not going to allow you to commence,’ what then happens is that the students have to make the payment. When our payment to the institution arrives sometime after that, we’re now into what we now know as refund territory. The individual student or their family has paid, NELFUND has paid; the school is holding a double payment,” he explained.
Sawyerr further explained that while institutions are obligated to refund students in cases of double payment, the process is still evolving, as this represents a new administrative responsibility for many schools.
“At that point, the institution is obliged to return what the student has paid to the student. Now, this is not something that they’ve been doing for the last 10 years, 15 years, let’s say. It’s brand new territory for the institution, so they’ve had to find and devise ways of doing this quickly. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re doing anything untoward. It simply means that they have to bring in a new administrative process to fit that. We are not empowered to do anything other than to encourage the institution to return the funds to the school,” he said.
He noted that NELFUND is working closely with oversight bodies such as the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, (ICPC), and the National Assembly to track disbursements and ensure accountability, while also supporting institutions in improving their refund processes to reduce delays and ease the financial burden on affected students.
“But we’ve been working very closely with institutions. We’ve been working closely because they’re interested with the ICPC; they’re interested in tracing any monies that leave government coffers and go to either another government coffer or to an individual. So we’ve looked at this very closely, we work very closely with them. The National Assembly also have oversight functions; they’ve also been following this. There’s a lot of money that departs from NELFUND, and people want to know where it’s going,” he shared.
On whether the NELFUND is sustainable, Sawyerr said perceived delays are largely due to coordination challenges, adding that the system is stabilising as processes improve.
“I’m happy you used the words ‘seems to be’ a backlog—remember I talked about the complexity: hundreds of institutions, different start times, thousands or millions of students applying at different days, different expectations. We have to crunch all of this and make sure that we’re trying to give the right people money at the right time. But you know, it can’t always be the right time because some people apply way too late. A lot of people didn’t believe this was real. Some institutions have not-so-efficient systems or administrative systems of capturing data. So it seems to be late, but in reality, there’s been a lot of learning that’s had to be gone on by the students, by us, by the institutions, so that we can get to a point of synchrony.”
Explaining the rationale behind the ₦20,000 allowance, Sawyerr said the figure was based on what NELFUND could reasonably afford, describing it as a modest support to help students cover basic needs such as data and daily upkeep, along side their already paid tuition.
“20,000 Naira was the figure we looked at, we looked at what was affordable. We’ve taken the school fees off the table, and really, to be honest with you, given the environment that we’re in, this was a token to say, ‘Hey, look, this is something over and above your fees that we’ve already taken off the table.’ You can buy credit, you can do photocopying, you can buy data. So it’s something that just keeps them going so they don’t go to class with an empty stomach,” Sawyerr said.
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