The Nigerian Students Loan Scheme’s commencement has been indefinitely suspended by the Federal Government.
This was disclosed 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 yet again; it was initially supposed to take effect on Thursday while Sawyer confirmed that the launch-related adjustments are the reason for the delay.
“However, I won’t be able to commit to a specific date,” he stated. In order to make sure that no one is taken by surprise, we are waiting for everyone to get in line before we implement this in a useful, thorough, and sustainable manner.
A bill establishing 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 bill, sponsored by Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila was originally planned to take effect between september and october 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 had concluded. This involved 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) certainty that the program would begin as soon as its enlargement to incorporate additional aspects, such as vocational courses, was complete.
