By Idriss LAWAL
Thirty-Four Nigerian Universities are currently being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for diverting funds meant for students’ tuition fees by the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).
NELFUND says 34 tertiary institutions allegedly failed to refund students whose tuition fees were paid twice under the federal government’s student loan scheme.
Speaking during an interview on Arise Television on Sunday, Akintunde Sawyerr, managing director of NELFUND, said the agency has dispatched a five-man team, including operatives of the agency and internal auditors, to the affected institutions.
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Aside from this, EFCC has also received complaints from students, and it is looking into the matter.
Sawyerr said the probe followed a surge in complaints received from affected students.
“As of right now, there are 34 institutions that we are looking at closely with respect to this issue,” Sawyerr said.
The NELFUND boss said the refund issue followed President Bola Tinubu’s directive that the student loan scheme commence in the middle of an academic session rather than at the start of a new one, a situation that led some students to pay their tuition while awaiting loan approval.
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“What happened is that a lot of schools got double payment. Some from the students, some from us,” Sawyerr said.
“The refund process is entirely out of our hands. It is the recipient of the double payments that is obliged to make refunds to the students.”
Sawyerr Tsaid many students had relied on getting refunds after borrowing money to pay their tuition fees to beat registration deadlines.
According to him, while some institutions had promptly refunded affected students, others failed to do so, although he stopped short of accusing them of deliberate wrongdoing.
“Some have been very good at this. Others haven’t been so good at it,” Sawyerr said.
“I reserve judgement on the intentionality around it because, for some of them, they just didn’t have the process to make refunds.”
Sawyerr said NELFUND is exploring a tokenised payment system that would allow students to authorise tuition payments directly to their institutions, reducing the likelihood of duplicate payments.
“We chose in our setting up of this not to pay students directly for the loans because that would take us into an entirely new area,” he said.
