Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has explained why South-East students are yet to benefit from the federal government’s student loan programme.
On Friday, NELFUND said it disbursed ₦2,946,927,155 (Two billion, Nine hundred and Forty-six million, Nine hundred and Twenty-seven thousand, One hundred and fifty-five naira) to 27,667 students across 19 universities.
In the statement made available to newsmen, of the 19 federal high institutions across Nigeria, no federal high institution in the Southeast was listed.
The list sparked criticism from Ndi Igbo and several other platforms on X.
In reaction, NELFUND said no South-East federal high institution complied with the directive required for students to access the loan.
NELFUND said geo-political region was not a factor in the loan process. It called on stakeholders of the region to work with the federal high institutions’ authority to upload their verification process requested from all schools.
“It’s important to clarify that geopolitical zones are not a factor in the disbursement process. NELFUND sent a verification list to every institution eligible for disbursement.
“Payments are being made to institutions that have responded to this verification. Unfortunately, we have not yet received any response from the institutions in the South-East. We urge these institutions to complete the verification process so that their students can benefit from the scheme.”
Some of the benefitting federal high institutions include University of Maiduguri, Borno State; University of Ibadan, Oyo State; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State; Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, Ogun State and Federal College of Education Technical Gusau, Zamfara State, among others.