Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned the Federal Government over what he described as the abandonment of Nigerian students studying abroad under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA).
In a statement shared on his X account, Atiku accused the administration of President Bola Tinubu of neglecting the welfare of about 1,600 Nigerian students left stranded overseas after the BEA scholarship was quietly suspended.
According to him, the programme—designed to support Nigerian students studying in countries such as Morocco, China, Russia and Hungary—was first placed on a five-year suspension but later degenerated into total abandonment, without proper notice to students or their parents.
“At first, it was called a suspension. Today, it has become abandonment,” Atiku said.
He revealed that students received no stipends between September and December 2023. In 2024, their monthly allowance was slashed by 56 per cent—from $500 to $220—before payments stopped completely.
As of 2025, he said, no payments had been made at all, leaving students battling hunger, unpaid rent, and humiliation in foreign lands.
Atiku added that each student is now owed more than $6,000 in unpaid stipends, but government officials reportedly justified the non-payment by citing scarce public funds and the need for “responsible” spending.
“In that logic, the students became mere numbers, not human beings struggling to survive,” he said.
He described as “heartless” a government statement advising frustrated students to return home, calling it “expulsion by neglect.”
The human cost, Atiku noted, has been devastating. In Morocco, one Nigerian student reportedly died in November 2024 after enduring months of hardship. Parents and affected students have since staged protests in Abuja, demanding answers from the Ministries of Education and Finance.
“The BEA was never charity,” Atiku stressed. “It was a diplomatic pact meant to build Nigeria’s future workforce. Today, that promise lies broken.”
He concluded that across foreign campuses, Nigerian students are no longer just waiting for stipends—but for proof that their country still remembers them.
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