Scores of Nigerian students being sponsored abroad by the Federal government under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA), and their parents on Monday, appealed to President Bola Tinubu
to intervene, and save them from harrowing experiences in foreign countries due to the non-payment of their allowances.
The protesting students and parents besieged the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Finance in protest over the non-payment of allowances to the scholars
for about 11 months.
The protesters arrived the main gate of the ministry around 10am, bearing placards with various inscriptions, and chanting solidarity songs, while demanding urgent intervention by the federal government.
The BEA is a fully-funded initiative which allows Nigerian students to study abroad in partner countries such as Russia, China, Hungary, and Morocco.
However, the allowance was slashed from $500 per student to $220 per month in 2024, a situation the protesters said had made many of the beneficiaries stranded in their respective countries of studies while some lost their lives to avoidable circumstances.
In an interview with journalists, one of the affected students, Dalhatu Tijani, stated that the federal government slashed their 2024 stipends by 56 per cent, paying only $220 instead of the approved $500. Besides, they are still being owed arrears for September, October, November and December 2023.
“ We also had areas of 2024 where the money was slashed from $500 to $220. If you do the maths, you will find out that the government slashed it with over 56 percent.
“In 2025, no student has received a penny from the government and as we speak to you, students are suffering. In fact, we just lost a student who suffered from the complications of tuberculosis just last week.
“He is called Bashir Malemi. He is supposed to graduate this year, and the parents are still mourning the loss. That’s why we are on black.
“ So, we are here to plead with the government and appeal to their conscience to look at us as Nigerians with a brilliant mind who are the future of tomorrow and while we are there in foreign lands, dying and crying out of hunger and facing deprivation, as well as embarrassment from the landlords and other foreign partners,” he said.
According to him, they had made attempts to talk to the government several times.
He said, “We, in fact, met with the minister of education. We also tried to contact the accountant general’s office but to no avail. We were at the director’s office, federal scholarship board, and for all this while nothing has come out of it.
“We also had National Assembly. I think two times in the House of Representatives have moved a motion to investigate the cause of this problem, but up until now, nothing has happened, and we just lost a student last week.
“That’s why we are here to mourn and to plead with Nigerians and with the government, especially the President, Bola Ahmed Tinibu, to please direct the minister of finance, minister of education and all stakeholders in this matter to pay all the backlogs as well as restore the stipends from that $220 to $500 as supposed to be which is the international standard or the benchmark for any scholar to survive
