Eshioromeh Sebastian in Abuja
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has directly contradicted the federal government’s position, alleging that the administration of President Bola Tinubu has “quietly discontinued” a key foreign scholarship scheme and abandoned approximately 1,600 Nigerian students abroad.
His statement, posted on his verified social media account on Sunday, comes days after the Ministry of Education issued a detailed rebuttal to similar reports.
Atiku stated he had been “well briefed on how Nigerian students under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) have been abandoned abroad.” He described the BEA, a scholarship scheme revitalised in 1999, as “a bridge between Nigeria and the world” that has been severed without notice to families.
“What was initially described as a temporary five-year suspension soon metamorphosed into outright abandonment, leaving about 1,600 young Nigerians stranded abroad with empty pockets and fading hope,” he wrote.
Detailing a grim situation, Atiku claimed the students are owed more than $6,000 each in stipends. He criticized the official explanation that scarce funds must be managed responsibly, arguing that “the humans behind the figures dissolved into abstractions, and duty was sacrificed on the altar of convenience.”
He outlined a timeline where stipends were unpaid from September to December 2023, slashed by 56 per cent in 2024, and ceased entirely throughout 2025. “Hunger, rent arrears, and shame have become the daily companions of the beneficiary students,” he stated, noting tragically that “in Morocco, one student did not survive the ordeal, dying in November last year.”
Atiku saved his strongest condemnation for a reported government offer to finance the return of dissatisfied students. “Then came the final wound: defiance dressed as policy. In a press statement, the minister declared that any student ‘fed up’ could be financed to return home, as though abandoning years of study and shattered dreams were a minor administrative detail,” he said. He concluded by framing the BEA as a broken diplomatic pact, leaving scholars waiting “for a sign that their country still remembers them.”
This accusation directly contradicts a statement issued by the Ministry of Education on January 8, which dismissed such claims as “false and unfounded.”
That earlier statement, quoting the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, insisted that “no beneficiary on a valid federal government scholarship has been abandoned.” The government clarified that all students enrolled before 2024 had received payments up to that budget year, attributing any delays to fiscal constraints.
The ministry explained that a policy review led to the discontinuation of new government-funded bilateral scholarships abroad, citing sufficient domestic capacity in Nigerian universities. “Consequently, only scholarships that are fully funded by foreign governments are now being supported,” Alausa said.
He emphasised that support for existing students would continue and that the option to return home with government-funded travel and reintegration into local institutions remained available, framing the move as a necessary reform to “eliminate inefficiencies and abuses within the scholarship system.”
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