…as hardship deepens, one student reportedly dead
Parents and guardians of Nigerian students studying abroad under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) Scholarship Scheme have issued a passionate plea to the Federal Government to urgently rescue their children, warning that more lives may be at risk following prolonged delays in the payment of stipends.
The parents, under the Forum of Parents/Guardians of Bilateral Education Agreement Scholars (FPGBEA), said BEA students in Algeria, Morocco, Hungary, Venezuela, Russia, China and other partner countries are enduring “unimaginable hardship” due to the government’s inability to fulfil its financial obligations for nearly three years.
They made the appeal in Abuja during a press briefing and in a formal letter addressed to the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Mr Wale Edun.
Speaking at the briefing on behalf of the parents, Mr. Abang Matthew said the BEA scheme has become a “punishment for being brilliant,” and that many scholars are now starving, homeless and mentally distressed.
“These children of this nation left home with dreams, with hope, and with the promise that their government would support their education abroad,” he said. “But today, we are gathered here not in joy, not in celebration, but in deep sorrow and desperation. Because the Nigerian government has failed our children.”
According to him, the failure to pay outstanding stipends has pushed students into extreme conditions that have directly resulted in loss of life. “Let the nation hear this clearly: we have lost one of our own,” he said.
He confirmed the death of Bashir Malami Gwandu, a Nigerian BEA scholar in Morocco, describing it as “a stain on our national conscience.” According to the parents, the student died because he could not access timely medical care due to the long-standing non-payment of his allowance.
“His passing was preventable,” Matthew said. “He died because he could not access the medical care he urgently needed because the government that sent him abroad failed to send the stipend that would have kept him alive.”
The forum said scholars have received no stipends at all in 2025, survived severe shortfalls in 2023 and 2024, and endured unilateral reductions of monthly payments from $500 to $220 last year.
The parents said in 2023 alone, “students suffered a shortage of approximately two months of payments, plus four additional months in arrears that remain unsettled.” They added that many students are now hungry, sick, depressed and “living in foreign countries with rising inflation and strict immigration policies.”
“They are simply asking for what the Government of Nigeria promised them, budgeted for, and publicly announced,” the parents stated.
They said families in Nigeria are drowning in debt as they resort to borrowing, selling assets and taking loans to keep their children alive abroad. “This is not a scholarship anymore,” Matthew said. “It has become a sentence for being patriotic enough to accept a government-sponsored award.”
The forum said all appeals to government agencies have gone unanswered. According to them, parents and students have written letters, sent emails, visited ministries, appealed through NIDCOM, contacted the Ministry of Education and the Federal Scholarship Board (FSB), reached out to the Ministry of Finance, and “pleaded with the National Assembly,” with no positive response.
They presented five key demands to the Federal Government: the immediate payment of all outstanding arrears totalling 16 months; settlement of an additional eight months of accumulated shortfalls; restoration of the original $500 monthly stipend; creation of a transparent and reliable stipend payment system; provision of accommodation allowances for students in countries where host governments do not cover housing; and a functional welfare monitoring mechanism to prevent further tragedies.
In their letter to Mr. Wale Edun, signed by the Chairman of the forum, Prince Ponfa A. Wuyep, and the Secretary, Alhaji Zakari Mohammed, the parents warned that the hardship caused by the non-payment is “almost at the point of embarrassment to the scholars, their parents/guardians and to a very large extent to our country too.”
They said the students, who are barred from taking up jobs abroad, now face “constant threats of eviction” and can no longer afford basic necessities. “The human cost of this neglect is incalculable,” the letter read.
The parents recounted the death of Malami, describing it as the most tragic evidence of the consequences of the prolonged stipend crisis. “He was unable to raise the necessary funds for timely and proper medical treatment due to the non-payment of his allowance,” they wrote.
They appealed to the minister to “use your considerable influence to prioritize and authorize the immediate release of the cumulative outstanding funds to the Federal Ministry of Education for onward remittance to the beneficiaries,” stressing that the action is vital to prevent further tragedies and secure the academic future of the scholars.
At the briefing, Matthew made a direct appeal to President Bola Tinubu, members of the Federal Executive Council, and the National Assembly to act urgently. “We appeal to your conscience. We appeal to your humanity. We appeal to your sense of duty and justice,” he said. “Let no parent stand over the coffin of a child who left Nigeria with dreams, only to return because the system failed him.”
He called on Nigerians, civil society organisations, religious leaders and the media to support the appeal. “This is not politics. This is not an attack on the government. This is a cry for life. A cry for justice. A cry for accountability.”
The parents said they still hold hope that government intervention will avert further disaster. “May this press briefing be the turning point,” Matthew said. “May the federal government hear us. And may our children live, study, and return home to us safely as the leaders and global ambassadors they were meant to be.”
