Abia Govt, NELFUND Mobilise Students To Access FG Loan Scheme

The Abia state government, through the state Ministry of Tertiary Education and the Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), has organised a sensitisation programme for students of the state university at Uturu on the need to participate in and access the student education loan scheme.

Speaking at the sensitisation session, organised for ABSU students at the University Auditorium in Uturu, the Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Prof. Uche Eme Uche, bemoaned the low enrolment statistics of the students and universities in the South East zone in the student education loan scheme and called for reversal.

Prof. Eme said that no good parents would stop their children from benefiting from a good policy, and that this accounted for why Gov. Alex Otti deemed it necessary to hold the sensitisation programme to educate the students on the need to participate and access the loan scheme.

She said that the governor invited NELFUND and was told that Southeast students are not enrolling in the scheme; hence, he invited the agency and directed the ministry to organise the programme.

The Commissioner, who disclosed that she was a federal government loan beneficiary and never paid back anything, urged the students to access the loan, as similar things can still happen in these circumstances.

Also speaking, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Ndukwe Okeudo, said that the sensitisation session was apt and urged the students to access the loan, which he described as free money which is hardly paid back and changed the mindset of being asked to pay back in future.

In his speech, the Managing Director/CEO of the NELFUND, Mr Akintunde Sawyerr, regretted that the South East zone had the least number of student beneficiaries of the loan scheme.

Mr Sawyerr, who was represented by the fund’s Assistant Director of Fund Mobilisation, Mr Austine Akubo, said that apart from the students in the zone not showing enough interest to benefit from the student loan schemes, concerned tertiary institution authorities are not helping the matter by not discharging the role of reverting to the body with the required information about the students.

Mr Sawyerr said that other zones like the North East and North West have had a lot of beneficiaries and fund disbursement to their students and urged the students at ABSU and other tertiary institutions in the South East to see the scheme as a national cake from which they should equally benefit from the sharing.

He dismissed the fear of repayment being expressed by students, stating that they should first access the loan before thinking of repayment modalities.

The Chief Executive said that Mr President might, in his magnanimity, decide to write off the loan repayment, and in the event of such not happening, the percentage a student loan beneficiary will repay on getting employment should not be the reason for a student to deprive him/herself of the scheme.

He said that the scheme was introduced by President Tinubu in 2024, who has seen the success of similar students’ loan schemes in other parts of the world and is assured of the sustainability of the scheme being funded by budgetary allocation, parts of EFCC recovered loot and TETFUND.

Mr Sawyerr said that so far, the Board has, as of April 2024, registered over 500,000 students; over 400,000 successful students have accessed N21bn in students’ upkeep pocket money, while N29.9bn has been advanced for school fees payment.

The Managing Director lectured the students on modalities of filing the forms to qualify as beneficiaries who then availed themselves of the opportunity of benefitting from the scheme and equally brought it to the attention of their loved ones in other tertiary institutions in other states in the zone, unaware of the operations of NELFUND.

In his vote of thanks on behalf of the students, the SUG President, Mr Ugwuala Emmanuel appreciated the fund and the Ministry of Tertiary Education for organising the programme and assured that the whole thing would not end there but that they would continue to reach and preach out to students on the need to participate in the scheme.

Mr Ugwuala thanked the state governor for the transformational work going on in the school and pledged the support of the students to his administration.

Abia Govt, NELFUND Mobilise Students To Access FG Loan Scheme is first published on The Whistler Newspaper