Ex-Nigerian lawmaker repays students loan after 40 years

A former member of the House of Representatives, Lanre Laoshe, has repaid the student loan he owed as a student in the 1970s, the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) announced on Tuesday.

Mr Laoshe, who represented Abeokuta South Federal Constituency, received N1,200 as a student loan from the defunct federal government student loan scheme between 1976 and 1979.

NELFUND spokesperson Nasir Ayitogo said in a statement that Mr Lasoshe obtained a table of average annual exchange rates from 1972 to 1985 from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to calculate what he owed the government.

After the calculations, the former lawmaker issued a bank draft for N3.1 million to NELFUND as the equivalent of the original N1,200 loan.

How new loan value was arrived at

“The table indicated that in 1979, the exchange rate was $1.00 to N0.596, meaning that the sum of N1,200 was equivalent to $2,013.42 at the time,” Mr Ayitogo said.

“Using the current exchange rate of $1.00 to N1,583.98, Hon. Laoshe calculated that the equivalent amount today would be N3,189,217.00.”

NELFUND appreciated the former lawmaker as an “act of goodwill and integrity.”

The agency described the former lawmaker “as an inspiring example of the impact that government support can have on individuals and highlights the importance of honouring one’s commitments.”

Defunct student loan scheme

In the 1970s, the Federal Military Government promulgated the Nigerian Students’ Loans Board Decree to provide funding to students based on loans repayable 20 years after graduation. However, the scheme collapsed after a while due to massive indebtedness and corruption.

When the board folded up, it published the names of debtors, most of whom provided fake addresses and the names of non-existent guarantors to the board when they were students in their respective institutions of higher learning in the country.

When President Bola Tinubu signed the Access to Higher Education Law to provide loans to Nigerian undergraduates, Nigerians expressed concerns about its sustainability, given that a similar scheme failed in the 1970s.

The law establishes NELFUND to handle all requests, disbursements and recovery of student loan applications.

According to the new law, the beneficiaries must repay the loan two years after graduation.

The sources of funding for the scheme include one per cent of all profits accruing to the federal government from oil and other minerals.

Other sources are one per cent of taxes, levies, and duties accruing to the federal government from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), and Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), as well as education bonds and education endowment fund schemes.