The Federal Government has pledged to settle outstanding obligations owed to Nigerian students affected by the discontinued Bilateral Education Agreement scholarship scheme, with a total payout of N8 billion.
Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, during an interview on Channels Television, stating that N4 billion had already been released while the remaining N4 billion would be approved within the next two weeks.
“We’ve paid four billion of it. We’re disbursing the four billion now. This additional four billion will be approved. I’ve been in constant communication with the Minister of Finance. It will be approved in the next two weeks. They will be settled,” he said.
Alausa explained that the government decided to discontinue the BEA scholarship programme after uncovering widespread abuse and irregularities in its implementation.
According to him, one of the first documents presented to him after assuming office requested approval of N650 million to sponsor 60 students to Morocco, including a student scheduled to study English in the French-speaking country.
“650 million for 60 students? And as I was looking at the courses that were going to go to Morocco, we had a Nigerian scholarship given to a student that would go study English in Morocco, a French-speaking country. There were also courses like psychology, sociology, zoology and botany,” he said.
The minister noted that the scheme was originally created as a diplomatic partnership initiative aimed at training Nigerians in specialised fields such as medicine, engineering and aeronautics, but had gradually turned into a general overseas education sponsorship programme.
He further revealed that investigations uncovered cases where some beneficiaries were simultaneously enrolled in Nigerian universities while receiving scholarship funds meant for foreign studies.
“We also had incidences of students who got the scholarship while studying in Nigerian universities and were still collecting the money. So, we stopped it,” he added.
The BEA programme operated through bilateral agreements between Nigeria and countries such as China, Russia, Algeria, Hungary, Morocco, Egypt and Serbia, under which Nigerian students were sponsored for higher education abroad.
Nigeria’s spending on the programme reportedly rose from N3.2 billion in 2022 to N8 billion in 2025.
Before the scheme was officially scrapped in April 2025, many beneficiaries had faced months of hardship due to delayed payments. Between September 2023 and August 2024, students reportedly received no stipends, while a later disbursement in September 2024 saw payments reduced by more than 56 per cent.
Several affected students were reportedly evicted from hostels or denied access to university services over unpaid fees.
Although a fresh N1.7 billion allocation for the programme appeared in the 2026 Appropriation Bill, the Federal Government clarified that it was merely a procedural rollover and not a reversal of the policy ending the scheme.
