FG Begins Payment Of Delayed BEA Scholarship Allowances
The Federal Government has commenced disbursement of outstanding 2025 allowances owed to Nigerian students benefiting from the Bilateral Education Agreement Scholarship Programme in partner countries, offering long-awaited financial relief to scholars who have endured months of hardship due to payment delays.
The development was disclosed in an official statement issued on Wednesday by the Federal Ministry of Education and signed by the ministry’s Director of Press and Public Relations, Folasade Boriowo. Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to President Bola Tinubu, subsequently amplified the announcement by reposting the statement on X.
The BEA Scholarship Programme is a government initiative designed to support Nigerian students pursuing academic programmes in partner countries abroad through financial assistance from the Federal Government. Although the programme has since been discontinued, a significant number of its beneficiaries had continued to raise concerns about prolonged delays in the receipt of their allowances, with many reporting serious financial strain as a direct consequence.
According to the ministry’s statement, “the Central Bank of Nigeria has successfully remitted the approved funds to Nigerian embassies and missions for immediate disbursement to eligible scholars,” indicating that the bureaucratic bottlenecks that had stalled earlier payments had been resolved at the central banking level.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, confirmed that the released funds represent 50 per cent of the total approved outstanding obligations for 2025. He noted that the government was actively working to ensure the remaining balance is settled, and that the affected diplomatic missions had already received the funds in their accounts and were expected to begin paying beneficiaries without further delay.
Alausa also appealed to scholars to monitor their bank accounts as the payments begin to reflect across various countries.
He described the disbursement as a demonstration of President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to the welfare and academic progress of Nigerian students studying abroad, framing it within the administration’s broader Renewed Hope Agenda.
The Federal Government equally reaffirmed its commitment to meeting outstanding financial obligations to Nigerian scholars and sustaining policies that advance quality education, student welfare, and national human capital development.
The BEA programme, in its operational years, gave Nigerian students access to state-sponsored education in countries with formal academic exchange agreements with Nigeria, a policy instrument successive administrations used to build the country’s pool of trained professionals across critical sectors. Its discontinuation, however, left a layer of administrative obligations, particularly around the settlement of allowances for students already enrolled under its framework before it was wound down.
For many of the affected scholars, the disbursement announcement marks a turning point following extended periods of financial uncertainty in foreign countries, where the absence of government stipends had in some cases disrupted their studies and daily living.