NELFUND disburses monthly stipend to 20,371 students from six varsities

The newly established Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, said on Monday that it has disbursed a N20,000 monthly stipend to 20,371 students in six universities for July.

A statement by the agency that was made available to journalists, disclosed the tertiary institutions as Bayero University Kano, Federal University Dutsin-Ma, University of Ilorin, University of Benin, University of Ibadan and University of Maiduguri.

The Director of Finance of NELFUND, Ibom Uche, who signed the statement, said the fund would soon commence payment of stipends to students from about 55 additional tertiary institutions across the country.

According to him, arrangements have been made for the fund to conclude payments to eligible students within two weeks.

He said President Bola Tinubu on Sunday in his speech to Nigerians on the ongoing protest committed the sum of N50 billion to the student loan cause.

“It is noteworthy that the President only Sunday committed a further 50 billion naira from recovered proceeds of crime.”

The implementation of the student loan scheme is President Bola Tinubu’s flagship project in the education sector.

Barely a month after his inauguration as president, Tinubu signed the Access to Higher Education Act, which creates a legal framework for granting loans to indigent or low-income Nigerians to facilitate the payment of their fees in Nigerian tertiary institutions.

The law, reenacted earlier this year, created the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.