…Scheme will Stop Students From Collecting Loans While Parents Pay School Fees
The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has introduced a tokenised payment system that will allow students to authorise the payment of their tuition fees directly to their institutions, in a move to prevent duplicate payments and eliminate refund complications.
The Managing Director of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed this at a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, explaining that the new system would give beneficiaries greater control over the payment of their approved fees without allowing them to divert the funds for personal use.
Under the arrangement, students will receive notifications through the fund’s mobile application when their approved tuition fees are ready for payment. They can then authorise the transfer of the funds to their respective institutions.
The system replaces the existing arrangement under which NELFUND transfers approved tuition fees directly to institutions on behalf of beneficiaries.
Sawyerr said the change became necessary after delays in notifying students of completed payments led some beneficiaries to pay their fees independently, unaware that NELFUND had already settled the bills.
“We discovered that there were some issues with students being informed in good time that their payments had been made by NELFUND, which meant that some of them would pay because they hadn’t realised that NELFUND had paid already,” he said.
“We want to eliminate that need for refunds. So we’re placing the power of payment in the hands of the students.”
He explained that the tokenised system would enable students to authorise payments conveniently through their phones while ensuring that the funds remained restricted to their approved purpose.
The NELFUND chief stressed that the arrangement would not involve transferring cash directly to beneficiaries.
“We’re not giving the students money, but we’re giving them power,” he said.
He added that the system would prevent students from transferring the loan funds into their personal bank accounts or redirecting them to institutions other than those for which the payments were approved.
Sawyerr also warned that the fund would tackle what he described as the practice of double-dipping, in which some beneficiaries receive financial support through NELFUND while their parents continue to pay their tuition fees.
He said the practice undermined the purpose of the student loan scheme and vowed to address it.
“This comment is based on our recognition that there are so many students out there who are double-dipping. They are taking from the NELFUND and still stressing their parents. We are going to put an end to that,” he said.
Established in 2024 following the enactment of the Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) Act, NELFUND provides interest-free loans to eligible students in Nigerian tertiary institutions.
The fund said on October 3, 2026, that it had disbursed more than ₦372 billion to 1,635,676 beneficiaries across 312 tertiary institutions nationwide.
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