Tertiary institutions from the South-east were not part of 19 institutions that benefitted from recent loan disbursements by NELFUND, a body created for granting loans to indigent or low-income Nigerians to facilitate the payment of their tuition fees in Nigerian institutions.
The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has explained why South-east was not included in the recent loan disbursements to tertiary institutions in the country.
NELFUND is the body created by the Higher Education Act 2023 to grant loans to indigent or low-income Nigerians to facilitate the payment of their tuition fees in Nigerian institutions.
The claim
There has been a claim that the agency excluded the tertiary institutions in the South-east from the list of schools to benefit from its loan disbursements.
A pro-democracy group, Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy and Development (FENRAD), made claim.
In a statement on Monday, the group's Executive Director, Nelson Nwafor, described the alleged exclusion as "worrisome." It slammed the education committees of the National Assembly over their "silence" on the alleged exclusion of the South-east.
NELFUND speaks
Reacting, the spokesperson of the NELFUND, Nasir Ayitogo, refuted the claims when contacted by PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday.
Mr Ayitogo said geopolitical zones are not a factor in the disbursement process.
The spokesperson explained that tertiary institutions in the South-east were not included in the recent loan disbursements because their management did not respond to verification requests forwarded to them.
"NELFUND sent a verification list to every institution eligible for disbursement for them to confirm that, indeed, those on the list are their students.
"Unfortunately, we have not yet received any response from some institutions and coincidentally, the eligible institutions in the South-east for disbursement are part of those yet to respond to NELFUND," he said.
Mr Ayitogo said payments were being made to only institutions that responded to NELFUND's verification request.
He said the agency is urging all institutions to complete the verification process in order for their students to benefit from the scheme.
Connecting the Dots
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NELFUND, in July, released a list of 36 institutions to benefit from the scheme.
The list included two South-east institutions, the Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University, Imo and the Imo State University of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences Umuagwo.
The agency, on 14 August, released a fresh statement, indicating that they had cleared additional state-owned institutions for the loan application.
In the updated list which had a total of nearly 100 institutions, the number of South-east institutions on the list jumped from two to nine.
The universities from the South-east which were part of updated list were Abia State University, Uturu, College of Education, Nsugbe (Anambra State), Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Anambra State, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki and University of Medical and Applied Sciences Enugu State.
Others were Imo State University of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences Umuagwo, Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University (Imo State), Benjamin Uwajumogu State College of Education Ihitte-Uboma and Imo State Polytechnic Omuma (Imo).
NELFUND disbursed loans to a total of 19 of the selected institutions, covering a total of 27,667 students and to the tune of N2.94 billion.
None of the selected South-east institutions, however, benefitted in the disbursement.
The development prompted the South-east caucus of the National Assembly, last Sunday, to urge tertiary institutions in the region to comply with the verification request of the NELFUND for disbursement of loans to students.
