The Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), Mr. Akintunde Sawyerr has said there was no systematic discrimination against students from any region, religion or tribe in Nigeria, from accessing it’s zero-interest loan scheme.
Sawyerr who spoke at a strategic engagement and sensitisation campaign with heads of over 30 tertiary institutions, traditional leaders and other stakeholders in Enugu on Thursday, insisted that the loan scheme was designed to accommodate every Nigerian student who meets the general criteria open to the public.
He said: “This is a totally democratized equal opportunity. There is no systemic anything to discriminate against anybody otherwise we wouldn’t come here, We’re not in the habit of wasting our time.
“This is about ensuring that people have access. It’s important that we don’t allow any sort of misinformation to go out there.
“There’s no systemic discrimination, there’s no quota to this. This is a loan that all Nigerians must access. If people from the South East take this loan and become global leaders or local leaders, it helps the country.
“This is about Nigeria. It’s not about one region against the other or one religion against the other. It’s about Nigeria featuring on top on the global stage. All Nigerians must be involved in this.”
Sawyerr who observed that there was a little bit of hesitation around acceptance of the student loan scheme in the South East region, noted that the region has witnessed more strategic visits by NELFUND, in a bid to allay the fears and apprehensions that the people have towards the scheme.
“In this region the only challenges we have are the usual challenges; misunderstanding, misinformation, people not sure, people feeling that it’s designed not to work for them, or maybe there’s something there that’s stopping them.
“They just have a normal problem like everybody else has with technology, and then they say, this has been rigged against us. But we’re here and we’re not here to waste our time. We’re here to help the people apply and get institutions to also take part.”
On calls for regional offices, the NELFUND boss noted that although that could be considered much later in future, the agency was committed to leveraging on technology as much as possible.
“We don’t really want people standing between the money and the opportunity, or the student. We want to leverage technology by opening up to them rather than buying diesel every day for a location where people have to travel to spend money to get there to go and ask the questions they could have asked on the phone or by email or by whatever means possible.”
Special Adviser to the Enugu State Governor on Education Innovation, Dr. Chinyere Onyeisi, said it was important for students in Southeast, Enugu State in particular, to maximise the opportunity made available by the current adminstration through NELFUND, to access the zero-interest education loan.
“What the government is doing has an essential role to play in different areas of education. But this NELFund has to do with the student support system.
“Teachers, the heads of institutions that are here today, when they go back to their various schools, they are supposed to continue to step down the specialisation programme to make sure that the students understand the procedures, how to apply, and then apply effectively to benefit from this initiative. Because it’s real. And they are testifying that other states are already benefiting.”
The traditional ruler of Edem Ani Ogwugwu Ancient Kingdom in Enugu State, Igwe Samuel Asadu while commending the zero interest student loans, urged NELFUND to make the loan scheme more accessible to Nigerian students.
Igwe Asadu who doubles as the chairman, Enugu State Traditional Rulers Council, appealed to the South Eastern region of the country to embrace the scheme which he described as “a national cake.”
“The South Easterners need to be conscious of this. We’re mostly businessmen. We need to know that these loans are our national cake.
We are part of the cake and we should be keen to it.”
Also speaking, the Special Advisor to the Governor on Digital Economy and MSMEs, Arinze Chilo-Offiah who doubles as the DG of the Enugu SME Centre, regretted that out of the 36 states, Enugu state was ranked 33rd in terms of the amount of funds each state accessed for both the student loan and the student upkeep.
“The government was desirous in ensuring that we keyed to this huge opportunity, the zero interest loan. It pays for your school fees, it pays for your upkeep and there’s also the element of the skills acquisition programme which is something I’m very interested in.
“In ensuring that the schools know about it, the first step is this sensitization process for the principal officers of the tertiary institutions in the state, let them be fully guided on how the programme works, how the application process works, how they can interface their school application such as if you want to register your school, their website and how you can find a way to link it to that of NELFUND through specific API integrations so that we can increase the number of individuals that are accessing these loans and reduce the burden that it causes the state government in terms of scholarships.”
