The Federal Government has cancelled the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) scholarship programme.
The government said the BEA was a waste of resources since tertiary institutions in Nigeria are offering same courses Nigerians were going to study in the foreign institutions.
The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Alausa, made this known while receiving the newly elected officials of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in Abuja on Tuesday, April 29, 2025.
The BEA is a product of strong diplomatic relations and mutual cooperation, which enables Nigerian students to pursue academic studies in partner countries such as China, Russia, Algeria, Hungary, Morocco, Egypt, and Serbia.
Nigerians on the BEA scholarship have been dragging the federal government for abandoning and refusing to pay their allowances, which they said was making it difficult to survive and cater for themselves.
Recently, the government noted that all supplementary allowances due to Nigerian scholars have been paid up to December 2024 and appealed to the students to exercise patience as additional funding had been requested to ensure full remittance of entitlements to all students affected by shortfalls in fund disbursement occasioned by exchange rate fluctuations.
However, Alausa said the Nigerian government would no longer continue with the BEA scholarship programme, as he expressed displeasure over the “blackmailing” attitude of some Nigerian students who were under the programme, on social media.
The minister that the funds being spent on the scholarship programme would rather be injected into scholarship programmes within the country.
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He said: “Last year when I got here, with what we had, 60 students are going to Morocco on this BEA programme and they asked me to sign N650 million for these students and I said no, it was not fair to Nigerian students, I did not sign it.
“I looked at all the courses; a student went to Algeria a French speaking country to study English; some psychology, sociology. Courses that we have here and we do better here.
“At the end of 2024, all scholarships have been paid. The scholarships for 2025 have not been paid because of budget appropriation. I am sorry it might be late but in the next few months they will get their scholarship.
“We don’t even check on their results if they are progressing yet we are paying them free passage every year and I thought this is not fair to Nigerian students.
“This year 2025 alone we budgeted N9 billion for such student for 1,200 students. For government to spend N9 billion for just 1200 students to go to Egypt, Algeria to study English, sociology, psychology it’s not fair.
“We have heard in the last week on social media that we have abandoned them. We have to wait for government to pay them yet they started blackmailing the government.
“We have evaluated every single course for each of the courses those 1,200 students are studying abroad, we have them in Nigeria.
“We will be cancelling this BEA; it’s not the best use of money, we are cheating you other Nigerian students who are studying here. Those funds will be deployed to giving you more scholarships here locally.
“We will meet our obligations for those students who are there now for them to complete their studies but from this year 2025, we will not be accepting anymore Bilateral Education Arrangement. It’s a waste of our resources.”
Earlier, the newly elected President of NANS, Olushola Oladoja, commended the minister for the strides he has achieved since his assumption of office.
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