The head of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, Akintunde Sawyerr, has pushed back against allegations of financial wrongdoing at the agency, saying no evidence has been presented to establish that funds have been misappropriated.
Sawyerr spoke during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Monday, while explaining how the student loan programme is funded and how money is transferred to beneficiaries.
He said NELFUND needs sufficient funding to meet students’ financial needs under the loan scheme. He also connected the programme’s financing to the Federal Government’s decision to redirect resources previously committed to subsidies towards social welfare initiatives.
“There is no evidence of any financial misappropriation by NELFUND. The reality of it is that in order for people to take a loan, there has to be some capital they can draw on.
“The link is that the President, His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has removed subsidy on the one hand and is reassigning the funds that would ordinarily have gone to the top 1% of the 1% and pushing it into welfarist programs, of which NELFUND is one,” Sawyerr said.
The NELFUND managing director also disputed suggestions that the agency’s financial activities lack transparency.
He explained that payments are processed electronically, making it possible to track the movement of funds. According to him, institutions receive their allocations directly, while students’ upkeep payments are transferred into their personal bank accounts.
Sawyerr pointed to the University of Ibadan, saying the institution had recently received more than N1bn through the programme.
“The University of Ibadan students, before NELFUND, probably had a very high dropout rate because they just didn’t have access to capital to go to school.
“Now, the President introduced NELFUND; we paid, I believe, over a billion naira to the University of Ibadan recently. And those funds are transferred directly to the institution. So, where is the opacity in that?
“We transferred the funds directly to the institution and asked the institution to give the students access to classes. We’ve also paid upkeep to the students directly,” he said.
He further explained that the payment trail could be followed from the Central Bank of Nigeria to either participating institutions or individual beneficiaries.
“Now, in those two actions, the transfers of money are done electronically. It’s entirely traceable.
“The money leaves the Central Bank of Nigeria and goes either to the institution, the University of Ibadan, or in the case of upkeep, goes directly to the students in their bank accounts.
“So, I’m struggling to understand where the lack of transparency is. It sounds a little bit like mischief to me. But again, I’d need to interrogate this research that was done,” he said.
NELFUND says selection process is impartial
Sawyerr also responded to questions surrounding the fairness of the process used to determine who benefits from the student loan programme.
He said applications are submitted and assessed electronically, with the system relying on eligibility requirements rather than factors such as gender, ethnicity or personal relationships.
“We receive applications electronically. The system doesn’t recognize whether you’re male, female, whether you’re Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Fulani, Ibibio, or Ogoja.
“As long as you have an NIN, it’s in your favor because it means you’re Nigerian. If you have a JAMB registration number, it means that you’re properly qualified to access the tertiary institution that we deal with,” Sawyerr said.
He explained that applicants are also expected to provide details confirming their admission and a bank account for electronic payments.
“If you’ve got a matriculation number or registration number, it means that you’ve been given admission. If you’ve got a bank account—because we don’t do cash, everything goes through the system—again, it means you qualify, and you’ve got admission in a proper institution,” he said.
Sawyerr maintained that the platform was designed to prevent favouritism and said applicants could not gain an advantage through their connections to senior officials.
“From our perspective, it’s completely agnostic as far as how people are chosen or concerned. It doesn’t care. The system doesn’t care whether you’re friends with the Managing Director or in-laws with the Executive Director. It doesn’t care,” Sawyerr added.