NELFUND Rules Out Releasing Beneficiaries’ Names, Cites Data Protection
The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has ruled out publishing the names of students benefiting from its loan scheme, citing data protection laws and the risk of exposing young borrowers to embarrassment and targeting. The fund said it would disclose only the institutions that received payments and the number of beneficiaries, while keeping individual identities confidential.
The position was set out by the Director-General of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, who said students who borrowed to finance their education should not be exposed because of their financial circumstances. He argued that some beneficiaries feel embarrassed about taking loans, while others fear being singled out, and that disclosure laws bar the fund from releasing their names.
“We’re never going to publish the names of individual beneficiaries,” Sawyerr said. The fund, he added, could still make public the schools it paid and the numbers involved.
Since the student loan portal opened on 24 May 2024, NELFUND has disbursed N375.28bn as of 9 November 2026, made up of N194.77bn in institutional fees and N180.50bn in upkeep allowances, according to the fund. It put the number of loans disbursed at 1,675,474 across 320 beneficiary institutions.
The scale has grown quickly. Disbursements stood at about N206.29bn and 1.16 million beneficiaries early in 2026, rose to N303.91bn by July, and reached N355.87bn in September, before passing N375bn this month.
The debate over naming beneficiaries comes as education and finance experts press for more transparency and clearer recovery plans, with the first repayment window due in 2028. Sawyerr maintained that confidentiality and accountability were not in conflict, insisting the fund could show where public money went without identifying individuals.
On the terms of the loans, Sawyerr said NELFUND had no immediate plans to charge interest and that students deserved interest-free credit. He also played down calls to convert the loans into grants, arguing that borrowers at tertiary level understood the commitment and should repay once employed. “Nigerians deserve an interest-free loan,” he said.
On sustainability, he said loan recovery was only one of several funding sources, alongside investments, donations and statutory allocations. He said NELFUND was already covered under the development levy, a 4 per cent charge on the profits of larger companies introduced under the 2025 tax law and effective from January 2026, from which he put the fund’s share at 15 per cent. He argued that educating more young Nigerians would widen the tax base and, in turn, free up more money for education.
The scheme has not been without strain. NELFUND records show repeated delays in upkeep payments through 2026. Beneficiaries received a N20,000 allowance for May and a N40,000 payment to clear a June and July backlog, while the fund earlier reported upkeep arrears affecting thousands of students.
Sawyerr said a token system had been introduced to stop double payments of tuition, after some students who had already paid were charged again once the fund released money to their schools. Under the system, beneficiaries receive electronic tokens on a phone app and authorise payment to only the institution that admitted them, preventing diversion of the funds.
He said the fund had added a price dispute feature to its portal, letting students flag fees they consider excessive before applying, and that NELFUND would refuse to finance charges it deemed too high. He noted, however, that the fund could not sanction institutions that raise fees, as that power rested with regulators such as the National Universities Commission, the National Board for Technical Education and the National Commission for Colleges of Education.
With repayments not due until 2028, the fund’s long-term health will depend on how well it recovers loans and secures steady financing. For now, NELFUND insists that protecting borrowers’ privacy and accounting for public money can go together, even as pressure grows for firmer proof that the scheme can sustain itself.