Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Tinubu’s administration of neglecting Nigerian students studying overseas under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) scholarship scheme, alleging that the government has failed in its responsibilities to beneficiaries of the programme.
In a statement posted on his official X handle on Sunday, Atiku said he had been “well briefed” on the difficulties faced by Nigerian students abroad following what he described as the quiet discontinuation of the BEA initiative.
The BEA programme, which began in 1993 and was revitalised in 1999, allows Nigerian students to undertake undergraduate and postgraduate studies in partner countries under bilateral agreements between Nigeria and host nations.
According to Atiku, the current administration initially framed the move as a temporary five-year suspension but later allowed it to slide into what he called “outright abandonment,” leaving about 1,600 Nigerian students overseas without financial backing.
He said the affected students are owed stipends exceeding $6,000 each and claimed that repeated requests for payment have gone unanswered.
“Their pleas are simple and desperate: pay the stipends owed,” Atiku said. “Yet from the corridors of power came a cold, technocratic explanation that scarce public funds must be managed ‘responsibly,’ and money meant to keep these students alive abroad should instead be redirected home.”
Atiku criticised what he described as the government’s failure to account for the human impact of its actions, saying the students were reduced to mere figures in budgetary considerations.
He noted that the situation deteriorated between September and December 2023 when stipends were unpaid, followed by a 56 per cent cut in allowances in 2024—from $500 to $220 monthly—before payments were halted altogether. He added that no stipends were paid throughout 2025.
According to him, students have been grappling with hunger, unpaid rent and public humiliation, pointing to the reported death of a Nigerian student in Morocco in November 2025 as a tragic outcome of the hardship.
“In Morocco, one student did not survive the ordeal,” Atiku said, adding that the incident turned “quiet suffering into public grief.”
He also referenced protests staged by parents and students in Abuja, where demonstrators gathered at the Federal Ministries of Education and Finance to demand payment of outstanding allowances.
Atiku further faulted remarks attributed to education officials suggesting that dissatisfied students could be sponsored to return to Nigeria, describing the suggestion as insensitive.
“To anxious parents, it sounded like expulsion by neglect,” he said, warning that forcing students to abandon their studies midstream would undermine years of academic work and damage Nigeria’s credibility with partner countries.
He emphasised that the BEA scheme was not a charity programme but a diplomatic commitment aimed at developing Nigeria’s workforce through cooperation with countries such as China, Russia, Morocco and Hungary.
“Today, that pact lies broken,” Atiku said, adding that the affected students were waiting not only for their stipends but also for reassurance that Nigeria had not abandoned them.
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