By Uzair Adam
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Tinubu’s administration of breaching the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) scholarship scheme, alleging that the decision has left about 1,600 Nigerian students studying overseas stranded and without support.
In a statement issued yesterday, Atiku said the BEA scheme was discontinued under the Tinubu administration without prior notice to parents or beneficiaries and without regard for students who were already in the middle of their academic programmes abroad.
He explained that the BEA, introduced in 1993 and revived in 1999, was created to enable Nigerians pursue undergraduate and postgraduate studies through bilateral agreements with partner countries, describing the programme as a vital diplomatic and educational bridge that had now been abandoned.
Atiku said what was initially presented as a temporary five-year suspension of the scholarship eventually turned into total neglect, leaving students without stipends and basic support.
According to him, unpaid allowances have accumulated to thousands of dollars per student.
“Their pleas are simple and desperate: pay the stipends owed, now more than $6,000 per student. Instead, they were told that public funds were scarce and that money meant to keep these students alive abroad should be redirected elsewhere.”
He noted that the situation worsened between September and December 2023 when stipends were not paid, while allowances were reportedly slashed by 56 per cent in 2024, dropping from $500 to $220 per month, before payments were eventually stopped altogether.
He added that no stipends were paid throughout 2025.
According to Atiku, the consequences have been severe, with students facing hunger, rent arrears and growing emotional distress in foreign countries.
He cited the death of a Nigerian student in Morocco in November last year, which he said turned years of quiet suffering into public grief.
The former vice president also referenced protests by affected students and parents in Abuja, where they reportedly visited the Ministries of Education and Finance to demand explanations, but said their concerns were largely ignored.
He criticised comments attributed to the Minister of Education suggesting that students who were “fed up” could be funded to return home, describing the remark as dismissive and insensitive to years of academic sacrifice.
“To anxious parents, it sounded like expulsion by neglect,” Atiku said, adding that Nigerian scholars scattered across foreign universities were waiting not only for their stipends, but also for reassurance that their country had not abandoned them.