Nigeria: Ignore Social Media Posts Promoting Scholarship Opportunities for 'Over 100,000 Nigerian Youth'

28 February 2025
Africa Check (Johannesburg)
By Precious Ewuji

Ignore social media posts promoting scholarship opportunities for 'over 100,000 Nigerian Youth'

IN SHORT: Several Facebook posts promote a scholarship partnership between the Nigerian government and an organisation called Scholarship Sphere to benefit young people. But this is a scam.

"The Federal Government is partnering with Scholarships Sphere to train over 100,000 Nigerian Youth in a New Skill Abroad . If you don't want to miss this opportunity, send us a message now," reads a 23 February 2025 post on Facebook.

The post features a photo of Nigerian president Bola Tinubu and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier shaking hands.

Scholarship Sphere is a team of undergraduate students who have won scholarships and share similar opportunities with others through their website.

During his Independence Day speech in October 2024, Tinubu announced a national youth conference to "address the diverse challenges and opportunities confronting our young people". The conference was scheduled to start in the first week of February 2025, but it had not started at the time of publication.

The post includes a link for interested applicants.

But is the Nigerian government partnering with Scholarship Sphere to train over 100,000 young people? We checked.

Don't fall for it

The link attached to the Facebook post led us to a website promoting "federal government jobs for Canadian immigrants". The website had nothing to do with any scholarship opportunities for Nigerians. This was the first red flag.

We also searched Tinubu's social media pages and Scholarship Sphere's website and found nothing about the alleged partnership to train young people.

If the claim were true, it would have made the news. But no media house has covered it, which is another red flag.

Such posts aim to get users to click on the link and open the website about jobs for Canadian immigrants.

All signs point to a scam. This type of scam, promising financial rewards in the name of prominent individuals, government or private organisations, or popular company brands, is a common type of engagement bait tactic used on social media.

To protect yourself from similar scams, read our guide here.

More posts promoting fake scholarship opportunities can be found here, here, here, here and here.

Read the original story, with links and other resources.
Africa Check is a non-partisan organisation which promotes accuracy in public debate and in the media. Twitter @AfricaCheck and www.africacheck.org

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