Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of abandoning Nigerian students studying overseas under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA), warning that the alleged policy reversal has left about 1,600 young Nigerians stranded and without financial support.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Atiku said the BEA scholarship scheme was quietly discontinued by the Tinubu administration without prior notice to parents, guardians or students already midway through their academic programmes abroad.
The former vice president explained that the BEA, established in 1993 and revitalised in 1999, was designed to enable Nigerian students pursue undergraduate and postgraduate studies through bilateral arrangements with partner countries. He described the scheme as a vital diplomatic bridge that has now been “left broken.”
“What was initially described as a temporary five-year suspension soon metamorphosed into outright abandonment,” Atiku said.
According to him, the decision has left beneficiary students abroad without stipends, with outstanding allowances now running into thousands of dollars per student.
“Their pleas are simple and desperate: pay the stipends owed, now more than $6,000 per student. Yet from the corridors of power came a cold, technocratic explanation that scarce public funds must be managed ‘responsibly,’ and that money meant to keep these students alive abroad should be redirected home,” he stated.
Atiku said the hardship worsened between September and December 2023 when stipends were not paid, before allowances were slashed by 56 per cent in 2024—from $500 to $220 per month—and later halted entirely.
He added that no payments were made throughout 2025.
“The cruelty of the moment was sharpened by timing and tone. Hunger, rent arrears and shame have become the daily companions of the beneficiary students,” he said.
Atiku further alleged that the crisis had tragic consequences, revealing that a Nigerian student in Morocco died in November last year after enduring severe hardship.
“In Morocco, one student did not survive the ordeal, turning quiet suffering into public grief,” he said.
He noted that parents and affected students had staged protests in Abuja, gathering at the Ministries of Education and Finance to demand explanations, but claimed their appeals were largely ignored.
The former vice president also criticised remarks attributed to the Minister of Education suggesting that students who were “fed up” could be funded to return home, saying the comment trivialised years of academic effort and sacrifice.
“To anxious parents, it sounded like expulsion by neglect. Today, that pact lies broken,” Atiku said.
He added that Nigerian scholars scattered across campuses around the world were waiting not only for their overdue stipends, but also for reassurance that their country had not forgotten them.