Afenifere praises Laoshe for repaying 35-year-old student loan

The pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and socio-political organisation, Afenifere, on Friday, lauded Lanre Laoshe, for repaying the loan he obtained during his undergraduate years between 1976 and 1979.

Loshe, an active member of Afenifere, on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, paid a sum of N3,189,217.00 into the account of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund.

Afenifere, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Jare Ajayi, in Ibadan, Oyo State, described his conduct in this respect as “very exemplary.”

Ajayi said, “On arriving at the calculation, he issued a Polaris Bank Plc bank draft (No. 14670909) for this amount to NELFUND, marking his repayment as a token of gratitude to the Federal Government for the role it played in his educational journey”

“For the purpose of determining the current value of the N1,200 loan, Laoshe received then, he obtained a table of average annual exchange rates from 1972 to 1985 from available sources at the Central Bank of Nigeria with the table indicating that in 1979, the exchange rate was $1.00= N0.596; meaning that the sum of N1,200.00 was equivalent to $2,013.42 at the time.

“So, using the current exchange rate of $1.00= N1,583.98 to a dollar, he calculated the equivalent of N1,200 today to be N3,189,217.00. And that was the amount he remitted to NELFUND.”

Afenifere further described his action as a practical demonstration of Omoluabi, a concept that the Yorubas espouse and expect from every member of the society.