ASUU requests Tinubu to change Student Loans into grants for poor Students

More than 90% of students, according to the ASUU President, won’t be able to meet the “stringent requirements” to acquire and repay the loan.

President Bola Tinubu has been urged by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to amend the recently signed Students Loans Act to include grants for needy students.

ASUU National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics program today that it would have been better if we had given it to the group of students who are extremely needy. He said that it should have been named a grant rather than a loan.

Since it comes from the Federation Account, it should be referred to as a grant rather than a loan because, once these people receive it, they graduate with large debts and, if they don’t make payments within two years, they are sent to jail. We are discussing collective bargaining because it allows for the inclusion of all viewpoints.

In order to keep a campaign pledge, Tinubu signed the Students Loans Bill into law on Monday. Femi Gbajabiamila, the current Chief of Staff to the President, who served as Speaker of the 9th House of Representatives, supported the legislation. The law, which is now an Act, offers free loans to needy Nigerian students.

The loan, according to the ASUU President, is not feasible. The loan, he claimed, “is not sustainable.”

The concept of a student loan originated in a bank that had been created, according to Osodeke. You can go and look into those who took out loans but never paid them back. A Students’ Loan Board was also established by military decree 50, which was passed in 1994 and 1993. In 2004, the National Assembly domesticated it, and a year later, it took off. The money vanished. We’re interested in how this one differs.

He claims that there are over a million students enrolled in Nigeria’s public colleges, making it impossible for the loan to fully cover tuition costs.

The ASUU President claimed that the loan’s standards are “not realistic,” and that more than 90% of students won’t be able to fulfill the “strict requirements” necessary to apply for and repay the loan.

“We, as a union, also conducted study of nations around the world to determine the suicide rates of persons who had benefited from this loan. Recently, (President Joe) Biden has been attempting to repay certain Americans who borrowed money from US banks, the speaker stated.

Finding alternate sources of finance for school is preferable to burdening kids with loans whose parents make N30,000 per month, the statement reads.