Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele has defended the National Education Loan Fund, known as NELFUND, after a journalist challenged the program’s reach at a media conference in Abuja, with government data confirming over one million applications processed and billions of naira disbursed.
The exchange took place Wednesday at a session reviewing Nigeria’s Reform Scorecard. Journalist Bassey Udoh told the minister that his three children enrolled in university had not received NELFUND student loans and that he personally knew no one who had benefited from the program.
Oyedele countered that NELFUND operates as a nationwide scheme accessible to any eligible student through a straightforward application process. The minister told reporters that the program had recorded higher uptake in northern regions of the country than in other parts of Nigeria.
Oyedele also noted at the briefing that videos exist showing students receiving NELFUND disbursements, describing the recipients in those recordings as joyful. The minister’s response framed the program as functional and geographically broad, not limited to any single region or institution.
Government data presented at the conference confirmed that NELFUND has processed over one million applications since the loan scheme launched. The data also confirmed that billions of naira have been disbursed to student beneficiaries across Nigeria during that same period.
Udoh’s challenge came as a direct, on-the-record account of his own family’s experience with the federal loan program. He stated that three of his children currently attend university and that none of them had received NELFUND funds or encountered peers who had.
The minister did not dispute that individual applicants may not yet have received funds. Oyedele instead pointed to the overall application volume and the disbursement figures as indicators of the program’s scale and operational progress at the national level.
The conference in Abuja drew attention to what participants described as regional trust differences in how Nigerians engage with federal government initiatives. That framing emerged during discussions surrounding the NELFUND exchange between Udoh and the minister on Wednesday.
Officials did not specify at the briefing which federal institutions or agencies track regional trust levels in government programs. The reference to trust differences came in the context of explaining variations in NELFUND uptake between the northern and southern parts of Nigeria.
Oyedele confirmed that the application process for NELFUND is simple and that no extraordinary barrier exists for students seeking to access the loans. The minister stated that eligible students can apply through the program’s standard process without requiring third-party assistance or institutional referral.
The Reform Scorecard conference served as the setting for a broader government assessment of policy delivery across multiple sectors in Nigeria. NELFUND, as a flagship education financing initiative, formed part of the metrics discussed by officials and journalists present at the Abuja session.
Udoh’s account introduced a personal dimension to the policy debate, with the journalist drawing directly on his role as a parent of university students to question program reach. His disclosure came during the open media session rather than in a private exchange with the minister.
Government figures did not break down the one million processed applications by state or geopolitical zone during Wednesday’s conference. Officials confirmed the aggregate national figure without providing a regional distribution of either applications received or funds disbursed to students.
The billions of naira figure cited by officials was not further itemized at the briefing into per-student amounts or yearly tranches. Oyedele’s office did not immediately release a written breakdown of the disbursement data following the conclusion of Wednesday’s Reform Scorecard conference in Abuja.
NELFUND’s application accessibility, regional uptake patterns, and the volume of processed student loan requests remain central to the government’s defense of the program’s national reach, as Oyedele’s direct and public challenge to Udoh’s personal account at the Abuja conference clearly demonstrated to those present.
