President Bola Tinubu has directed that eligible liquid funds recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, be channelled to the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, as the Federal Government moves to strengthen funding for the rapidly expanding student loan programme.
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The Federal Executive Council, FEC, also approved the deployment of funds from unclaimed dividends and dormant-account trust arrangements to NELFUND to provide additional financial resources for its growing obligations to Nigerian students.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, announced the decisions on Wednesday while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja.
Alausa said the President’s directive was aimed at providing NELFUND with a more sustainable pool of resources as the number of students seeking tuition and upkeep support continues to increase.
“The President, in his benevolence, has now directed that all funds recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission be diverted to NELFUND to continue to support its funding,” the minister said.
He added that FEC had also approved the deployment of unclaimed dividends and dormant-account funds to the student loan scheme.
“This was also approved by FEC: that all unclaimed dividends from the Capital Market Trust Fund and the Dormant Account Trust Fund should also be directed to NELFUND, so that NELFUND will be financially buoyant to meet its growing obligations today,” Alausa said.
The minister, however, clarified that the presidential directive does not extend indiscriminately to seized properties or assets whose ownership or forfeiture remains under legal contention.
According to him, the directive relates to liquid and unencumbered funds available to the Federal Government following lawful recovery processes.
“Note, and the President was very clear, not seized properties, or recovered looted funds, but liquid funds, from the EFCC will now be transferred to NELFUND,” he said.
The clarification is significant because the EFCC routinely holds or manages different categories of recovered assets, including property subject to interim forfeiture proceedings, assets awaiting final court determination, money recoverable by identifiable victims and funds finally forfeited to the Federal Government.
The latest directive therefore focuses on funds legally available for government deployment rather than assets still tied to pending litigation or third-party claims.
The decision builds on an earlier intervention in August 2024 when President Tinubu directed that ₦50 billion from proceeds of crime recovered by the EFCC be released to NELFUND.
The EFCC subsequently clarified that the ₦50 billion was not a donation by the anti-graft agency but part of recovered proceeds remitted to the Federal Government, which the President directed towards the student loan programme.
Education authorities have since described that allocation as crucial seed funding for the student loan scheme.
The Federal Government has also increasingly deployed recovered assets directly to the education sector.
In July 2026, the EFCC handed over 1,452 items recovered from proceeds of crime to the Federal Ministry of Education, including 501 double-decker bed frames, 939 mattresses and 12 wooden beds with mattresses for deployment to educational institutions.
The government has similarly cited the conversion of a forfeited private university facility into the Federal University of Applied Sciences, Kachia, Kaduna State, as an example of redirecting recovered assets towards public education.
The latest funding decision comes as NELFUND experiences rapid expansion in both applications and disbursements.
Figures released by the Fund as of August 8, 2026 showed that approximately 1,659,853 student loan applications had been processed since the commencement of the scheme.
Total disbursements had risen to about ₦322.69 billion.
Of that amount, approximately ₦192.89 billion had been paid directly to 319 beneficiary institutions as institutional charges, while ₦129.80 billion had been disbursed as upkeep allowances to students.
NELFUND Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Akintunde Sawyerr, also said this week that between 850,000 and 900,000 students had received upkeep payments, while all disbursements were made electronically rather than in cash.
The Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) (Repeal and Re-enactment) Act, 2024 established NELFUND as the body responsible for administering interest-free education loans to eligible Nigerians.
The law provides existing statutory funding sources for NELFUND, including one per cent of taxes, levies and duties collected by the relevant federal revenue authority, appropriations by the National Assembly, investment income, repayments and other permitted sources.
The newly approved inflows from recovered funds, unclaimed dividends and dormant accounts would therefore provide additional resources as the scheme expands.
The decision concerning unclaimed dividends and dormant funds also carries continuing obligations to their original owners.
Under the existing legal framework governing qualifying unclaimed dividends and dormant bank balances, such money transferred into the Federal Government’s trust arrangement is held subject to the rights of shareholders and account holders.
The funds are treated as obligations owed to the owners and remain capable of being claimed by the affected shareholder, depositor or lawful beneficiary.
The Central Bank of Nigeria has similarly maintained that the management of dormant accounts and unclaimed balances is intended to preserve the funds and ultimately reunite them with their rightful owners.
The government did not immediately provide detailed operational guidelines explaining how the newly approved NELFUND financing arrangement would interact with those continuing repayment obligations to persons who subsequently establish valid claims to the unclaimed dividends or dormant balances.
Alausa said the broader purpose of the decision was to ensure that financial constraints do not prevent eligible Nigerian students from pursuing higher education.
He linked the move to President Tinubu’s campaign commitment to expand access to tertiary education regardless of the financial circumstances of students and their families.
The additional funding streams are expected to strengthen NELFUND’s capacity to meet institutional fee payments and student upkeep obligations as applications continue to rise nationwide.
The Fund currently provides eligible students in public tertiary institutions with interest-free loans covering institutional charges, with qualifying beneficiaries also receiving upkeep support.
The latest FEC approval substantially expands the sources from which the Federal Government intends to finance the programme as NELFUND moves from its initial rollout into a large-scale national education financing scheme.
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