By Taiwo Adeyemi 

The Academic Staff Union of University, ASUU, has described the Federal Government student loan scheme as a huge debt burden on students after graduation.

ASUU’s University of Ilorin Chapter Chairman, Dr Alex Akanmu made the remark while featuring as a guest on Diamond FM, Ilorin, Kwara State popular Yoruba Language News and Current Affairs programme “E ba wa si on Thursday”.

It will be recalled that President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday launched the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFund) in the council chamber of State House.

Akanmu said Nigeria is a country with higher number of graduates that are still looking for jobs years after leaving school which will make most of the beneficiaries of the scheme carrying the burden of debt for life if they fail to be gainfully employed.

“Although NELFund said the students will start repayment two years after the mandatory youth service but we have graduates that are riding “okada” or still jobless after years of graduation”.

“Where do you want this set of graduates to get money to repay the loan? Some people will die with the debt”.

He added that the Federal Government should have given the fund to the University for revitalization and provided subsidized tuition fees for students.

“Imagine if the Federal Government has released the 35 billion naira to revitalized university education in Nigeria, at least the fund would have been used to build lecture rooms, modern laboratories, etc”

Government should have subsidized tuition fees, if parents can pay affordable fees, there is no need for their children to take a loan for education”.

Akanmu maintained that the scheme is discriminatory against students that didn’t get the fund.

He said “in a school like University of Ilorin where we have close to 40,000 students, if only 20,000 students were selected, how would those students not selected get quality education?”. 

He reiterated that the scheme might fail in Nigeria as a result of lack of adequate data.

“Nigeria is a country without data, is there a way to track beneficiaries after graduations?. There is a national payment scheme for students that are doing industrial training, some students after five years of their industrial training, they haven’t been paid”. 

Akanmu furthered that it’s an aberration to ask universities to make revenue for self sustenance.

He said “universities are designed for research but most of them are now looking for means of generating revenue, they have started having other business ventures like block making, pure water production, etc”. 

“The money they are making is not sufficient to provide basic amenities for students on campus, government should provide an endowment fund that will include private sectors to run universities in Nigerian”.

“Foreign students are not coming into the country like before and most of our students are going outside the country, including Ghana, Cotonou and Benin Republic because our curriculum is not in tandem with modern reality”.