Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has launched a scathing attack on the administration of President Bola Tinubu for what he describes as the deliberate abandonment of Nigerian students studying overseas under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA).
Students Left Stranded with Empty Pockets
In a detailed post on his X account, the former presidential candidate revealed that the crucial scholarship program has been effectively discontinued, leaving approximately 1,600 young Nigerians stranded in foreign countries. According to Atiku, a temporary five-year suspension announced by the government quickly turned into a complete abandonment of the scholars.
The financial plight of the students is severe. Atiku stated that they received no stipend payments from September to December 2023. The situation worsened in 2024 when their allowances were slashed by 56 per cent, from $500 to a mere $220 per month, before stopping entirely. There were reportedly no payments throughout the whole of 2025.
A Tragedy and Nationwide Protests
The human cost of this neglect has been devastating. Atiku highlighted a tragic case in Morocco, where one student died in November 2025, transforming private suffering into a moment of public grief. The crisis has driven desperate parents and scholars to the streets of Abuja, where they have protested outside the Ministries of Education and Finance, holding placards that expressed their sorrow and rage.
Atiku criticised the government's response as heartless. He pointed to a press statement where a minister advised "fed up" students to simply return home, a move he labelled as "expulsion by neglect." He lamented that Nigeria is casting off its brightest minds, forcing them to become objects of pity among peers from other African nations that honour their international obligations.
Broken Diplomatic Pact and Fading Hope
The BEA scheme, Atiku clarified, was not an act of charity but a diplomatic agreement rooted in shared progress. It was revitalised in 1999 to build Nigeria's future workforce through educational partnerships with countries like China, Russia, Morocco, and Hungary.
Today, that pact lies in ruins. Atiku noted that the students' plea is simple yet desperate: pay the outstanding stipends, now totalling more than $6,000 per student. He condemned the government's "cold, technocratic" explanation that scarce public funds must be managed responsibly and redirected home, arguing that this reasoning reduces human beings to mere abstractions.
Across distant campuses, Nigerian scholars now wait not just for their owed money, but for any sign that their country still remembers and values them.
