Atiku calls out Tinubu over the plight of 1,600 Nigeria students languishing abroad

By our reporter 12.1.2026
Former Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar said the administration of President Bola Tinubu has abandoned 1,600 Nigerian students under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) abroad.
According to Atiku a 2027 presidential aspirant, the BEA scholarship scheme began in 1993 and was revitalised in 1999. It allowed Nigerian students to purse undergraduate and postgraduate course in various countries through agreements between Nigeria and those nations such as China, Russia, Morocco, and Hungary.
“I am informed that what was initially described as a temporary five-year suspension soon metamorphosed into outright abandonment, leaving about 1,600 young Nigerians stranded abroad with empty pockets and fading hope,” Atiku said in a statement.
“In that reasoning, the humans behind the figures dissolved into abstractions, and duty was sacrificed on the altar of convenience.
“The cruelty of the moment was sharpened by timing and tone. After months of cries from students and parents over unpaid allowances, the authorities announced the suspension with a levity that stunned those already on the brink.
“Yet from the corridors of power came a cold, technocratic explanation: scarce public funds must be managed “responsibly,” and money meant to keep these students alive abroad should instead be redirected home.
He said between September and December 2023, the students were not paid, and in 2024, stipends were slashed by 56 per cent, from $500 to $220 a month, before stopping altogether.
“I gathered that hunger, rent arrears, and shame have become the daily companions of the beneficiary students.
“In Morocco, one student did not survive the ordeal, dying in November last year and turning quiet suffering into public grief.
“Parents and scholars poured into the streets of Abuja, protesting before the Ministries of Education and Finance, their placards heavy with sorrow and rage, their questions unanswered.
“Then came the final wound: defiance dressed as policy. In a press statement, the minister declared that any student “fed up” could be financed to return home, as though abandoning years of study and shattered dreams were a minor administrative detail.”