President Bola Tinubu’s signing into law the student loan bill into law in June was no doubt an attempt in the right direction as it will ensure that tertiary education becomes more accessible to Nigerians. After many expert opinions on the shortcomings and strengths of the Act, the federal government announced that the loan scheme would commence in September 2023.
However, the scheme didn’t commence in September as planned by the federal government. In an investigation done by Vanguard News, it was revealed that the scheme was facing knotty and unresolved issues. Just as expected, President Tinubu confirmed that the student loan scheme will kick off in January 2024 as opposed to September/October 2023. Tinubu rushed into the loan scheme as he has been rushing other national decisions with dire consequences for Nigerians.
The loan scheme isn’t something you just whip up and begin without proper structures in place and consultations. If Tinubu had constituted a team to look into the nitty-gritty of the scheme, it is highly likely that it would have commenced this year. It seems to me that governance and policy-making/implementation in Nigeria is often shoddy work. Nevertheless, among the issues surrounding the loan scheme were complaints by some stakeholders, especially parents, and students, about the stringent conditions attached to accessing the money, the period of repayment, the non-inclusion of students in some levels of administration of the scheme, the composition of members of the board that will administer the loans, among others.
To say I am surprised by the setback in starting the loan scheme would definitely be a lie. In a piece published in Opinion Nigeria back in July, I questioned why the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) was not part of the Committee in charge of the fund. It’s preposterous to think that the very people you want to initiate a scheme for aren’t involved in how the scheme would work. This was before the President of NANS, Comrade Usman Barambu, while appearing before a committee of the House of Representatives in August, faulted the government for not giving room for student representation.
The legislative summit was organised by the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee On Student Loans and Access To Higher Education and held in Abuja. Recall that in section 7(2) of the Act, the Committee in charge of the fund consists of 11 people, with the last 3 being representatives of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). However, there is no one representing the students for whom the loans are meant.
But what is even more shocking is that there was no conversation about how the loan scheme would affect physically challenged persons in Nigeria at the legislative summit. I expected that the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD) would be present at the summit as well. I wonder why James Lalu, the head of NCPWD, and the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD) have been quiet on this.
I’d written before that the Act is also not broad enough for those who are physically challenged especially in section 18 of the Act. Section 18 states that the beneficiary of the loan will commence repayment two years after completion of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme. It is obvious that securing a job right after NYSC or the means to set up a business is much harder for a physically challenged person in Nigeria than an able-bodied person.
Employment options are generally limited and even more limited for physically challenged persons in Nigeria. it would be difficult for them to repay it and this means they would most likely not take the loan, thus losing the only opportunity many of them would have to access tertiary education. Many physically challenged persons in Nigeria are poor. There’s no sugarcoating it. The physically challenged cannot make much money, and the parents of those who are physically challenged often cannot make enough to get by. It is so bad that 9 out of 10 people with disabilities in Nigeria live below the poverty line of $1.90 a day.
One can only imagine that the case won’t be different for an able-bodied person in relation to section 18. It would be extremely difficult for them to repay the loan within just two years. It appears that the government has forgotten or is playing ignorant of the fact that the unemployment rate has been increasing for over a decade. Global audit and tax advisory firm, KPMG, projected that Nigeria’s unemployment rate is expected to rise to 40.6% in 2023 as compared to 2022’s 37.7%. Again, over 71 million Nigerians live in extreme poverty today, and a total of 133 million people, 63 per cent of the population, are classed as multidimensionally poor according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
On the issue of students’ inability to pay back, the Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee on Students Loan Fund and Access to Higher Education in Nigeria, Hon. Terseer Ugbor, affirmed that there would be high cases of abscondment. I found this quite funny. Of course, there’d be abscondment because there are no jobs. Job losses are rampant and small businesses are closing up shop. A brief look at the state of the economy is a cause for serious concern. Ugbor, however, said the scheme will be insured to cover for the possible death of beneficiaries or cases of abscondment. Since nothing was said on section 18(6) of the Act which states that individuals who default on the loan or aid in such default commits an offense and upon conviction, the defaulter is liable to a fine of N500,000 or imprisonment for a term of two years or both, they’ve realised that defaulters would abound. If one doesn’t get a job after two years, they’d automatically become defaulters and that’s not their fault. It’s a reflection of today’s Nigeria.
Furthermore, Section 14(c) of the Act poses a problem that even the Hon. Ugbor touched upon it in August. It says applicants must provide at least two guarantors, and each of the guarantors shall be a civil servant of at least level 12 in the service, a lawyer with at least 10 years post-call experience, a judicial officer, or a justice of the peace. In a recent interview, the chairman said the committee has removed requirements hindering access to the loan beyond the basic guarantors who can now be family members or guardians. While that is good, he said nothing about Section 14 of the Act which says the applicant’s income or family income must be less than N500,000 per annum. This needs to be reworked to capture more indigent people.
The federal government’s move to take another look at the scheme with a view to fine-tuning it to address the concerns raised by the stakeholders is highly welcome. The Act is the beginning of a progressive track for accessible education, but the process must be meticulously perfected. It is my hope that there will be significant changes to the scheme before it commences and it will not be fraught with challenges that might derail it from its invaluable purpose.
However, we should be under no impression that the interest-free student loan would eradicate poverty or reduce the number of unemployed youths in the country. These require solutions that cut across the board. The government must work on reforming the tertiary education system to a highly functional state where education matches applicable skills needed in the real world. It is delirious to take out loans only to be unemployed, penniless, and useless in any society.
Salako, a Freelance Journalist and Editorial Assistant at UK-based Divinations Magazine, writes from Lagos.