UNN VC Raises Alarm Over Low Southeast Uptake of NELFUND, Urges Students to Apply.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Prof. Simon Ortuanya, has raised concerns over how few Southeast students are tapping into the Federal Government's Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), even as he praised the scheme for the real difference it has made.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of UNN's 55th Convocation Ceremony, Ortuanya revealed that around 7,201 UNN students have accessed the loan so far, a number he expects to keep climbing as more applications work their way through the system.
"As we are speaking, some people are filling the forms while approvals are being made," he said. "But we can say that those who have benefited are in the neighbourhood of 7,201 students, and we hope that the number will rise quickly."
Ortuanya described NELFUND as a genuinely unprecedented initiative, one that has removed a major obstacle standing between many Nigerians and a university education. He credited President Bola Tinubu directly for the policy. "I did state that NELFUND is an innovation. It hasn't happened before, and that is why we have to continue to extend our gratitude to our Visitor, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Bola Tinubu," he said. With the fund in place, he added, money should no longer be the reason anyone misses out on university.
Even so, the Vice-Chancellor didn't shy away from a harder truth: the Southeast is falling well behind other parts of the country when it comes to actually using the fund. He pointed to figures shared at a recent stakeholders' meeting in Enugu, convened by Governor Peter Mbah alongside the Managing Director of NELFUND to brief heads of tertiary institutions across the state. The numbers, he said, were hard to ignore.
"The statistics were worrisome. In the whole of the Southeast, the number of beneficiaries of NELFUND is not equal to what one state in the Northeast has recorded. That's because they take it seriously," Ortuanya said.
He made a point of stressing just how good a deal the loan is, arguing that it's worth taking even for families who could pay tuition out of pocket without any strain. His reasoning: rather than spending cash upfront, families could let that money earn interest in the bank while relying on the interest-free loan to cover fees.
"This is money that is available, zero interest. If I were a businessman, even if I had the money to pay school fees, I would rather put my money in the bank and take the loan. By the time repayment is due, my money would have generated interest; I would repay the loan and still keep the gains," he explained.
Ortuanya closed with a direct appeal to UNN students and parents across the Southeast, urging them not to let the opportunity pass them by. He reminded them that the application forms are readily available and encouraged eligible students to act.
"Our people are not taking advantage of the benefits of NELFUND. Let me use this opportunity to inform our students that the forms are there, and we encourage them to take advantage of this opportunity," he said.