The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has warned tertiary institutions against charging students after receiving payments from the fund, vowing that any such act will be treated as a criminal offence.
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Speaking in Abuja during a stakeholders’ engagement with heads of Colleges of Education, Agriculture, Health, and Nursing, NELFUND Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyer, said the fund has already paid registration fees for over 293,000 students across 303 institutions.
He vowed to deal with institutions that go contrary to the terms and conditions surrounding funds paid to them on behalf of students.
He said that while the fund lacks the statutory power to suspend, remove or expel erring heads of institutions, any traced illegality will be reported and dealt with administratively by the Minister of Education.
He said, “The commitment of NELFUND is to pay all their registration charges. Our instruction is that once they have paid their institutional charges, they must have access, I repeat, they must have access to education, lectures, classes, tutorials and examinations.
“We paid the whole amount, we don’t want the students to put their hands in their pockets and bring out money, and we do not want students to pay because the school told them they haven’t received any money when they already have.
“That’s going to be a serious matter and will be attended to administratively. And if anything illegal is going on, they will be dealt with as criminal offences if schools are asking students to pay when we have already paid.”
He added, “This is not an issue of refund. There are certain instances when we’ve made payments to schools after the students have actually paid because we started payment mid-cycle, but anybody who pays the school after the school has received money from NELFUND is committing a crime.
“We don’t have the power to sanction – we can’t suspend, remove or expel, but if we find anything, we have to take it to the minister, and if it’s criminal in nature, we have to escalate it to the agencies that will ensure that economic crimes and practices are not being committed.
“We can’t also punish the students for refusing to pay for the next session in the name of sanctioning the school. So we are threading with caution. Institutions that are erring are the ones that will face the music.”
Sawyer added that the minister will not allow the initiative of President Bola Tinubu towards making education accessible to willing Nigerians to be sabotaged on the altar of selfish interest.
He added that investigations are ongoing, with panels set up by NELFUND, the National Orientation Agency, and the Ministry of Education to address complaints of illegal practices.
“We are already conducting our own investigation. The NOA is conducting its own investigation, and the Ministry of Education, through the honourable minister, is conducting a holistic investigation,” he said.
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