The Nigerian Students Loan Scheme’s introduction has been indefinitely delayed by the Federal Government.
This was revealed on Tuesday in an interview with Arise News by Akintunde Sawyer, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.
The loan has been delayed once again; it was initially supposed to start on Thursday. Sawyer clarified that the launch-related corrections are the reason for the delay.”Sadly, I will not be able to commit to a specific date,” he stated.
In order to make sure that no one is taken by surprise, we are sort of waiting for everyone to get in line before we really implement this in a meaningful, thorough, healthy, and sustainable manner.
A bill creating a Students Loan Fund, which would offer interest-free loans to Nigerians for higher education, was signed into law by President Bola Tinubu in June 2023.
The former Speaker of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila is the bill’s sponsor. The bill was first supposed to take effect in September or October of 2023.
President Tinubu declared that the program would start in January 2024 after his administration missed the deadline in October of the previous year.
During a meeting in January, Yusuf Sununu, the Minister of State for Education, declared that the program’s preparations were finished. This included organizing for the program’s launch and creating the website for the Student Loan Scheme.
During their visit to the State House in Abuja, President Tinubu gave the leaders of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) confidence that the program would begin as soon as its expansion to include additional features, like vocational studies, was finished.