NELFUND Addresses Public Distrust On South-East Institutions’ Exclusion From Student Loans

Nigerian Education Loan Fund, or NELFUND has responded to public distrust stemming from alleged exclusion of South-East tertiary institutions from the list of beneficiaries on student loans disbursement.

This response was disclosed on Monday by the Managing Director of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, who, during an interview with NewsCentral, stated “we are not excluding any part of this country from access to these loans.”

It is an equal opportunity project that seeks to attract people (students) from every corner of this country,” he added.

Sawyerr stated that what led to the perceived exclusion was that the management of institutions in South-East has yet to meet the requirement of confirming the validity of their students who have applied for the loan.

We [NELFUND] are managing public funds and we need the cooperation of institutions for verification. If we don’t get response, we are not disbursing,” he said, adding that “it is that simple.”

“The real issue we have here is that we need these (South-East) institutions need to confirm to us that their students are theirs,” the NELFUND Directed added.

Sawyerr further stated that other issue leading to relative cases of exemption is when students apply and NELFUND sends confirmation letter across the institutions authorities to verify the applicants list but failed to respond on time.

Meanwhile, Sawyerr noted that the problem also stems from managerial state of these institutions but some South East institutions are sending in confirmation to ensure their students are not left out, “but we are not going to politicise the loan,” he said.

Read More:

• Resident Doctors Begin Warning Strike, Demand Release of Abducted Colleague
• For Economic Recovery, Nigerian Govt. Must Stop Inconsistent Policies and Weaponising Insecurity- Okonjo-Iweala
• Bolanle Austen-Peters Reveals Her 10,000-Acre Film Village In Epe

About The Author

Mayowa Durosinmi

author

M. Durosinmi is a West Africa Weekly investigative reporter covering Politics, Human Rights, Health, and Security in West Africa and the Sahel Region

See author's posts