Overseas students and their parents demonstrate  in Abuja to protest non-payment of scholarships

NIGERIAN students studying abroad under the federal government’s Bilateral Education Agreement (Bae) and their parents staged a protest in Abuja today over the non-payment of their scholarship stipends.

Details of the demonstration, contained in a notice issued by the Forum of BEA Scholars, took  place at the Federal Ministry of Finance headquarters in the Central District of Abuja at 10am this morning. Parents of the affected students, who said they could no longer bear the financial and emotional strain of supporting their stranded children abroad, joined the protest too.

In the notice, the scholars said they are entitled to monthly stipends of $500 but have not received any payment this year, leaving 11 months outstanding. They added that the federal government cut their 2024 stipends by 56%, paying only $220 instead of the approved $500.

According to the notice, the government still owes them arrears for September, October, November and December 2023. Many of the students, who are studying in countries such as Hungary, Morocco, China, Russia and Serbia, said they were struggling to afford food, accommodation, medical care and transportation due to the prolonged delay.

In addition, the Forum of BEA Scholars said several students had taken informal jobs in violation of their scholarship terms, while others had been relying on charity. Furthermore, the group linked the recent death of a Nigerian student in Morocco to the hardship caused by unpaid allowances, warning that more students were at risk if the government continued to delay payments.

In April this year, the federal government announced the cancellation of the Bilateral Education Agreement scholarship programme, describing it as an unsustainable and an inefficient use of public funds. This decision followed months of complaints by stranded Nigerian scholars abroad who accused the government of failing to meet its financial obligations under the scheme.

Established through diplomatic agreements with countries such as China, Russia, Algeria, Hungary, Morocco, Egypt, and Serbia, the BEA programme has allowed hundreds of Nigerian students to pursue higher education overseas on government sponsorship. Despite recent assurances by the federal government that all supplementary allowances had been paid up to December 2024, with further funds requested to cover outstanding entitlements affected by exchange rate fluctuation, education minister Dr Tunji Alausa, announced a definitive end to the programme.