NELFUND Calls For More Student Participation From South-south, South-east

By Suleiman Anyalewechi

The authorities of the Nigerian Educational Loan Fund ,NELFUND, have decried the lackadaisical attitude  to the scheme by students of the South- south ,and South-east extraction.

At the opening ceremony of a three-day stakeholders engagement session and technical workshop on system automation and the loan application processes,for Heads of Tertiary Educational Institutions in Abuja on Monday, May 5, 2025, NELFUND Executive Director, Operations, Iyal Mustapha, informed that the application figures from the two geo-political zones are the  smallest in the country.

Conversely, the North-west region is said to have the highest number of applicants with over 157,000.

The North-west is followed closely  by the North- east which, as at May 4, 2025, had  a total student applications of about 127,000 .

This is just as the South- west is projected to have about 92,850  applicants.

The South-east and the South-south are having a   little above 27,000 and 37,000 applications respectively.

Mustapha blamed the relatively low figures from the South-south and South- east on scepticisms by students about the authenticity or otherwise of the scheme.

So far, the interventionist agency said it has processed and disbursed over N53 billion in loan to about 516,212 students across the six zones of the country,with about 484 ,254 being paid upkeep allowances .

According to the NELFUND Director, so far,  a total of 567 ,058 registered on its loan application portal,while over N170 billion is available for the scheme at the moment.

On his part, the Chief Executive Officer, CEO, of the agency, Akintunde Sawyerr, appealed to students from the South- south and South-east to redouble their efforts in accessing the loan facility.

He underscored the imperativeness of the stakeholders workshop, noting that it is a critical step towards delivering fully digitized transparent and student-friendly financial aid system for the Tertiary educational institutions in the country.

According to Sawyerr, the first day of the gathering will be for the University administrators ,while their  Polytechnic, Colleges of Education counterparts and others will make use of the remaining two days of the talk shop.

In all, he informed that the workshop is principally aimed at evolving pragmatic frameworks for the seamless operation of the  scheme, as well as   strategies on how to address emerging challenges.