The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has cleared the air on concerns surrounding outstanding student upkeep payments, attributing the delays to technical and operational issues rather than policy failure or withheld funds.
The Managing Director of NELFUND, Mr. Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed this while responding to questions from journalists, following a reconciliation exercise conducted after the 2024/2025 academic session.
Sawyerr revealed that the exercise identified 11,685 students with unpaid upkeep allowances amounting to N927.98 million.
He explained that the outstanding payments were largely due to challenges such as network downtime, failed electronic transactions and unvalidated or incorrect bank account details submitted by some beneficiaries.
“The issue is not about funds being withheld. It is a technical and operational matter, and management has approved a one-time reconciliation process to address all the affected cases,” he said.
According to him, the approved measures include direct engagement with affected students, a grace period to update bank details, multi-layer validation of information and immediate payment once verification is completed.
Speaking on the sustainability of the student loan scheme, Sawyerr said the amended student loan law had strengthened the programme through the removal of guarantor requirements, inclusion of upkeep allowances and provisions allowing the fund to raise and invest resources.
He added that NELFUND was also leveraging partnerships with philanthropists, corporate bodies and government agencies to ensure long-term sustainability.
As an example, he cited a N20 billion collaboration with the Ministry of Education to support Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) across the country.
Also speaking, the Executive Director of Operations, NELFUND, Mr. Mustapha Iyal, said the outstanding upkeep payments affected about 11,000 students out of more than 400,000 beneficiaries recorded during the 2024/2025 academic session.
Iyal explained that many of the challenges stemmed from inaccurate data supplied by applicants, prompting the fund to engage institutions to validate student information.
He disclosed that feedback had been received from over 100 institutions nationwide and assured that payment of the outstanding upkeep allowances would commence shortly.
On the 2025/2026 academic session, Iyal said applications opened in November 2025, with more than 200 institutions already submitting updated student data.
He noted that about 280,000 applications had been received so far, adding that loans had already been disbursed to over 150,000 students.
Iyal further stated that upkeep payments for the new academic session would begin in January, explaining that such allowances are tied to active academic sessions and require fresh applications each year.
On loan repayment, he disclosed that repayment had already commenced, with some beneficiaries who had completed their studies and secured employment beginning to pay back their loans.
