Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused the Federal Government of abandoning about 1,600 Nigerian students studying overseas under the Bilateral Education Agreement scholarship scheme, describing the situation as cruel and irresponsible.
In a statement issued on Sunday in Abuja, Atiku said the scholarship programme, which allows Nigerian students to study in partner countries, had been quietly discontinued under the current administration without formal notice to parents or adequate arrangements for the affected scholars.
He said the BEA scheme, which started in 1993 and was revitalised in 1999, was initially suspended for five years but later degenerated into what he described as outright abandonment, leaving students stranded abroad without stipends or basic means of survival.
According to the former vice president, beneficiaries are owed more than $6,000 each in unpaid allowances, but authorities have justified the non-payment by citing scarce public funds, a position he said ignored the human cost of the policy.
Atiku noted that between September and December 2023, students were not paid, while in 2024 their monthly stipends were slashed by 56 per cent from $500 to $220 before payments stopped completely throughout 2025.
He said the situation has exposed students to hunger, rent arrears and humiliation, adding that the crisis claimed a life in Morocco in November 2025, when a Nigerian student reportedly died amid the hardship.
The former vice president recalled protests by parents and students in Abuja at the Ministries of Education and Finance, lamenting that their demands for intervention remained unanswered.
He also criticised a recent government statement suggesting that students who were dissatisfied could be sponsored to return home, describing it as an attempt to legitimise the abandonment of scholars who had invested years in their studies.
Atiku stressed that the BEA scheme was a diplomatic commitment, not a charity, warning that its collapse had damaged Nigeria’s credibility and left students in countries such as China, Russia, Morocco and Hungary waiting for proof that their country had not forgotten them.
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