By George Mgbeleke<\/p>\n
As Federal Government rolled out Institutions and names of beneficiaries from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund ( NELFUND), federal lawmakers from the South East geo – political zone , have decried non – participation of south eastern students from the scheme .<\/p>\n
The Federal Government had through NELFUND, announced last week that the sum of N2.9billion had been disbursed to 27, 667 students as first set of beneficiaries of the loan scheme across 19 tertiary institutions in the country excluding those from the South Eastern part of the country who are yet to apply for the loan .<\/p>\n
Worried by the development ,federal lawmakers from the South East under the aegis of South East Caucus in the National Assembly in a statement jointly signed by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe and Rt. Hon. Igariwey Iduma Enwo on Sunday, kicked against self – marginalization by South Eastern Students from the scheme .<\/p>\n
” The South East caucus of the National Assembly, wishes to urge tertiary institutions in the South East to comply with the verification request by NELFUND, so that our children can benefit from this national programme.<\/p>\n
“We also wish to encourage all South East students who need this support to ensure they apply. This is important as it can help ameliorate some of the challenges limiting access to higher education, which we must all agree is critical to self-development and growth.<\/p>\n
” It is important that as a people, we do not intentionally marginalise ourselves from opportunities which are open to all Nigerians.<\/p>\n
“Those opportunities are our right and we must, like others, demand for what rightfully belongs to us”, they said .<\/p>\n
The caucus added that the glaring absence of beneficiaries of the loan from the South East is worrisome and called on those concerned, to do the needful .<\/p>\n
The statement reads in part : “The attention of the South East caucus of the National Assembly has been drawn to the glaring absence of beneficiaries from South East tertiary institutions in the list of beneficiaries of the students’ loan being disbursed on behalf of the Federal Government by the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).<\/p>\n
” With a total of N2,946,927,155 already disbursed to 27,667 from 19 institutions in the country, South East higher institutions were conspicuously missing from the list.<\/p>\n
” In its defence, NELFUND has stated that the absence of beneficiaries from South East institutions was because even though verification lists have been sent to all schools, South East institutions are yet to respond to their request for the verification of the lists sent to them”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke As Federal Government rolled out Institutions and names of beneficiaries from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund ( NELFUND), federal lawmakers from the South East geo – political zone , have decried non – participation of south eastern students from the scheme . The Federal Government had through NELFUND, announced last week that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[372,205,371,373,370],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-uncategorized","tag-busary","tag-lawmakers","tag-loan","tag-south-east","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":662,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions\/662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}