Atiku made the allegation in a statement shared on his official X handle on Sunday, saying he had been “well briefed” on the plight of Nigerian students stranded overseas following what he described as the quiet discontinuation of the BEA programme.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused the administration of President Bola Tinubu of abandoning Nigerian students studying abroad under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) scholarship scheme, describing the situation as cruel, negligent and damaging to Nigeria’s international obligations.
Atiku made the allegation in a statement shared on his official X handle on Sunday, saying he had been “well briefed” on the plight of Nigerian students stranded overseas following what he described as the quiet discontinuation of the BEA programme.
The BEA scheme, introduced in 1993 and revitalised in 1999, enables Nigerian students to pursue undergraduate and postgraduate studies in partner countries through bilateral agreements between Nigeria and host nations.
According to Atiku, the programme was initially presented as a temporary five-year suspension under the current administration but later degenerated into “outright abandonment,” leaving about 1,600 Nigerian students abroad without financial support.
He said the affected students are owed stipends amounting to more than $6,000 each, adding that repeated appeals for payment had been ignored by the authorities.
“Their pleas are simple and desperate: pay the stipends owed,” Atiku said. “Yet from the corridors of power came a cold, technocratic explanation that scarce public funds must be managed ‘responsibly,’ and money meant to keep these students alive abroad should instead be redirected home.”
The former vice president criticised what he described as the government’s failure to consider the human consequences of its decision, saying students were reduced to “abstractions” in budgetary calculations.
Atiku noted that the crisis worsened between September and December 2023, when stipends were unpaid, followed by a 56 per cent reduction in allowances in 2024, from $500 to $220 per month, before payments stopped entirely. He added that no stipends were paid throughout 2025.
He said hunger, unpaid rent and humiliation had become daily realities for the students, citing the reported death of a Nigerian student in Morocco in November 2025 as a tragic consequence of the hardship.
“In Morocco, one student did not survive the ordeal,” Atiku said, adding that the incident transformed “quiet suffering into public grief.”
He also recalled protests by parents and students in Abuja, where demonstrators gathered at the Federal Ministries of Education and Finance to demand the payment of outstanding allowances.
The former vice president further criticised comments attributed to the education authorities suggesting that students who were dissatisfied could be sponsored to return to Nigeria, describing the offer as insensitive.
“To anxious parents, it sounded like expulsion by neglect,” Atiku said, warning that abandoning students mid-course would destroy years of academic effort and Nigeria’s credibility among partner countries.
Atiku stressed that the BEA scheme was not a charitable initiative but a diplomatic commitment designed to build Nigeria’s future workforce through cooperation with countries such as China, Russia, Morocco and Hungary.
“Today, that pact lies broken,” he said, adding that Nigerian students abroad were waiting not only for their stipends but for reassurance that their country had not forgotten them.
However, Saharareporters previously reported that the Federal Government had dismissed allegations that Nigerian students studying in Morocco under a federal scholarship scheme had been abandoned, describing the reports as false and deliberately misleading.
One of the students, who identified himself as a final-year medical student at a Moroccan university, had said the scholarship beneficiaries had been left without support despite being recruited to train as doctors for Nigeria’s healthcare system.
“I am in my final year studying medicine, but we have been abandoned,” he said. “They gave us scholarships to become doctors and return to Nigeria to strengthen the healthcare system, but they left us here.”
The students further disclosed that some scholars had been expelled from school, while others faced life-threatening medical emergencies. One case involved a student identified as Umar, who suffered from appendicitis and required urgent surgery.
“The hospital refused to treat him until payment was made,” a student said. “The Nigerian embassy had to borrow $1,000 for the surgery. Umar recently lost one of his parents and has no way to repay that money. If not for that intervention, we could have lost him too.”
However, the Federal Ministry of Education rejected the claims in a statement issued by its Director of Press and Public Relations, Boriowo Folasade.
Quoting the Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Alausa, the statement said, “No Nigerian student on a valid Federal Government scholarship has been abandoned.”
According to the ministry, all students enrolled under the Bilateral Education Scholarship Programme before 2024 received funding up to the 2024 budget year in line with government obligations.
It acknowledged that some payments may have been delayed but attributed this to fiscal constraints.
“Any outstanding payments are due to temporary fiscal challenges and are being addressed through ongoing engagements between the Federal Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance,” the minister said.
Alausa also dismissed claims that new bilateral scholarships were awarded in 2025, stating that “no new bilateral scholarship awards were made in October 2025 or at any time thereafter.”
The statement further explained that the Federal Government recently discontinued government-funded bilateral scholarships abroad following a policy review, which concluded that Nigeria now has sufficient capacity in its universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education to offer the affected programmes locally.
Under the new policy, only scholarships fully funded by foreign governments are supported, with all financial responsibilities borne by host countries.
Despite the policy shift, the ministry said the government remains committed to students already enrolled under previous arrangements and will continue to support them until they complete their studies.
The ministry also noted that students who wish to discontinue their studies abroad may formally apply to the Director of the Department of Scholarship Awards. Such students, it said, will be reintegrated into suitable Nigerian tertiary institutions, with the Federal Government covering their return travel costs.
Alausa said the reforms were necessary to reduce financial strain on public resources, noting that “past practices that sponsored overseas training for courses already well established in Nigeria placed avoidable financial burdens on the nation.”