Up to 100 Nigerian students face deportation from the UK over unpaid university fees

OVER 100 Nigerian students in the UK face the risk of being deported over the next week because their school fees have not been paid due to their state governments not honouring the terms of their scholarships.

Currently, there are thousands of Nigerian students doing undergraduate programmes in UK universities where they won scholarships but over recent years, the economic downturn has made it hard for their state governments to honour their commitments. It is believed that the affected students are sponsored by a Nigerian regional agency and some of them are saddled with debts of up to £20,000.

Described as some of the Nigeria’s brightest undergraduates, the students have been told that they will not receive their degree certification even though many of them completed their courses in the last academic year. Now, some of the affected students have been warned they could be deported by Friday, October 20.

Already,  the Nigerian high commission in London confirmed that 152 students have been caught up in the scandal as the sponsor agency had been left with a draught of funding due to a slump in Nigeria’s oil revenues. However, the high commission did not mention how soon the bill would be paid.

The universities of Leeds and Essex said they sympathised with the affected students but declined to say whether their visas would be revoked. They said that they were working closely with the Nigerian high commission to resolve the dispute.

In addition, the University of Sussex claimed it had allowed one student to graduate but declined to comment on whether their transcript had been withheld. It added that it had been providing some financial assistance for living costs in cases of particular hardship.