Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of abandoning Nigerian students studying overseas under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA), alleging that about 1,600 scholars have been left stranded without financial support.
In a statement released on Sunday, Atiku said the BEA scholarship scheme was quietly discontinued by the current government without notice to parents or students, including those already midway through their academic programmes abroad.
He described the BEA, established in 1993 and revitalised in 1999, as a vital diplomatic and educational bridge that enabled Nigerian students to pursue undergraduate and postgraduate studies through agreements with partner countries.
According to Atiku, what was initially announced as a temporary five-year suspension of the programme later “metamorphosed into outright abandonment,” leaving students without stipends and basic support.
He revealed that unpaid allowances now run into thousands of dollars per student, with some owed more than $6,000.
Atiku said stipends were not paid between September and December 2023, before being slashed by 56 per cent in 2024 from $500 to $220 per month, and later stopped entirely.
“Their pleas are desperate and straightforward: pay the stipends owed,” Atiku said, adding that government explanations about scarce public funds have done little to ease the hardship faced by the students.
He noted that the situation has led to hunger, rent arrears and severe emotional distress among beneficiaries. Atiku also disclosed that a Nigerian student in Morocco died in November 2024, allegedly due to the hardship caused by the lack of support.
Parents and students, he said, have staged protests in Abuja at the Ministries of Education and Finance, but their appeals have largely been ignored.
The former vice president further criticised comments attributed to the Minister of Education suggesting that students who were “fed up” could be sponsored to return home, describing the remark as dismissive and insensitive.
“To anxious parents, it sounded like expulsion by neglect,” Atiku said, adding that Nigerian students abroad are still waiting not only for their stipends, but for reassurance that their country has not forgotten them.
