Abuja, Nigeria — August 27, 2025
The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has warned that tertiary institutions found guilty of fraudulent practices, including falsifying student records, colluding with students to access loans, or failing to refund excess funds, will face sanctions.
The warning is contained in NELFUND’s latest operational guidelines for the student loan scheme, obtained by The PUNCH on Tuesday. The guidelines follow recent scrutiny of some institutions over incidents of loan overpayments and delays in refunding duplicate payments to the Fund.
According to the document, “An eligible tertiary institution shall refund any overpayment or duplicated payments made for any student. Institutions are to process and issue refunds within a maximum of 30 calendar days, or within such other period as may be determined by the board.”
The new rules are part of efforts to tighten transparency and accountability in the disbursement of student loans under the Access to Higher Education framework, which provides zero-interest loans to Nigerian students.
