NELFUND: Student Loan Scheme Has No Political Bias, Says Sawyerr

The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has rejected allegations that its student loan scheme favours children of members of the All Progressives Congress, insisting that beneficiaries are selected through an electronic process based on established eligibility requirements rather than political connections.

NELFUND Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Akintunde Sawyerr, described the allegation as a “completely ridiculous idea” during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics. He argued that the Fund’s application system does not require information about an applicant’s political affiliation and therefore cannot use party membership as a basis for determining who receives support. 

Sawyerr said the system is designed around objective information supplied by applicants and does not discriminate on the basis of political affiliation, religion, ethnicity or gender. He maintained that the focus is on whether students meet the requirements for assistance and need financial support to pursue their education. 

The denial comes amid a much broader debate about how NELFUND determines who should qualify for government-backed student financing. Sawyerr has argued that the scheme should not be restricted only to students classified as poor or indigent because financial need can exist even when a student's parents are relatively wealthy. He said family circumstances do not necessarily determine whether an individual young person can actually afford to remain in tertiary education. 

That broader eligibility policy is significant because NELFUND is operating at a scale far beyond a small social intervention. As of September 3, the Fund had processed 1,659,853 applications and disbursed ₦355.87 billion since the launch of its student loan portal in May 2024. Of that amount, ₦192.89 billion went towards institutional fees while ₦162.98 billion was paid as upkeep allowances to students. 

Sawyerr separately confirmed that demand for the programme has been overwhelming, saying the Fund had disbursed about ₦162 billion in upkeep allowances. He said the scale of demand reflects the financial pressure facing many Nigerian students and families trying to meet the cost of tertiary education. 

The size of the programme also makes transparency in beneficiary selection increasingly important. While NELFUND's explanation is that political affiliation is not part of its application criteria, public confidence will ultimately depend not only on how the system is designed but also on whether its operation consistently produces verifiable and transparent outcomes. The Fund has said its electronic processes are intended to minimise human interference and ensure that applicants are assessed through established conditions. 

Another issue confronting the scheme is its long-term financial sustainability. NELFUND currently spends about ₦16 billion each month on student upkeep, while the Fund has yet to begin recovering loans from beneficiaries because repayment is tied to the conditions set for graduates. Sawyerr has said the government is therefore exploring additional funding sources as the number of beneficiaries grows. 

The Federal Government has also announced plans to consider legally recovered and unencumbered public funds as one potential source of support for NELFUND. Sawyerr, however, stressed that recovered proceeds should not be viewed as a permanent funding model and said the Fund would need more sustainable sources of revenue as the programme expands. 

NELFUND was established under the Student Loans Act signed into law in April 2024. The programme provides interest-free financial assistance to eligible students in public tertiary institutions, including support for approved institutional charges and upkeep. Repayment is expected to begin after beneficiaries complete the National Youth Service Corps programme, subject to the applicable repayment conditions. 

For NELFUND, the immediate challenge is therefore larger than rebutting an allegation of political favouritism. With applications already running into the millions and hundreds of billions of naira committed to the scheme, the credibility of the programme will increasingly depend on transparent eligibility rules, reliable disbursement records, effective oversight and a funding model capable of sustaining the intervention.

Sawyerr's position is that the student loan scheme is intended to widen access to higher education rather than reward political connections. Whether that confidence is maintained over time will depend on NELFUND's ability to demonstrate that principle consistently as the programme grows.