Nigeria’s student loan scheme is set for a significant funding expansion as the Federal Government moves to broaden the financing base of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), opening the way for liquid funds recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), unclaimed dividends and dormant account funds to support the programme.

The move comes as demand for student financing continues to grow. NELFUND’s August 8, 2026 dashboard showed 1,800,489 applications, with 1,635,676 processed, while more than N322 billion had been disbursed under the scheme since its inception two years ago.

The development is significant because NELFUND is being positioned to draw on a broader financing architecture rather than relying principally on discretionary government releases.

Under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, the Fund has a statutory funding stream through its allocation from the four per cent Development Levy imposed on the accessible profits of qualifying companies. NELFUND is entitled to 15 per cent of the levy, which is shared among several development and security-related funds.

The new arrangement would therefore add another layer to NELFUND’s financing architecture, potentially connecting recovered or otherwise idle public resources with a student loan programme whose obligations are expanding rapidly.

But the development has a backstory that puts the roles of NELFUND Board Chairman, Jim Ovia, and its Managing Director and Chief Executive, Akintunde Sawyerr, at the centre of the Fund’s search for a more sustainable financing model.

On August 4, President Bola Tinubu met Ovia and Sawyerr at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, with discussions focusing on the progress of the student loan scheme, its challenges, opportunities for expansion and the need to ensure its long-term sustainability.

The meeting was significant because NELFUND’s leadership was engaging the Presidency at a point when the scheme was moving rapidly beyond its establishment phase.

With applications and disbursements rising, the question of how to finance the programme at scale had become as important as how many students it could reach.

Ovia, as Board Chairman, provides strategic direction at a time when NELFUND is expanding its national mandate, while Sawyerr and his management team are responsible for translating the student loan policy into a functioning programme.

Their engagement with the President provided an opportunity to press the broader case for a financing structure capable of supporting the Fund as demand grows.

There is also an important precedent. In August 2024, only months after NELFUND was established, President Tinubu directed the release of N50 billion from proceeds of crime recovered by the EFCC to support the student loan scheme.

The anti-graft agency subsequently clarified that the money was not a donation by the Commission, but recovered proceeds that had already been remitted to the Federal Government. NELFUND later confirmed receipt of the N50 billion.

The earlier EFCC intervention provided an initial financial boost to the scheme. The renewed effort to make liquid recovered funds available to the agency therefore represents a continuation, but potentially on a broader footing, of an approach that began at the inception of the programme.

The distinction between liquid and non-liquid assets is important. The latest arrangement does not mean that seized properties or other non-liquid assets recovered by the EFCC will simply be transferred to NELFUND. The focus is on funds that can be transferred and deployed to meet the Fund’s obligations.

The inclusion of unclaimed dividends and dormant account funds further broadens the potential financing pool.

But the volume of money ultimately transferred, the regularity of such transfers and the rules governing their deployment will determine how much difference the arrangement makes to NELFUND’s finances.

This is particularly important because the statutory tax allocation, while providing a recurring funding mechanism, must contend with a programme whose scale is already substantial.

The August 8 dashboard’s 1.8 million applications and more than N322 billion in disbursements illustrate the financial demands that will accompany further expansion.

The central issue, therefore, is no longer whether NELFUND has a funding source, but whether its various funding streams can collectively provide the predictability required to plan for sustained growth.

This is where the roles of Ovia and Sawyerr become particularly important. Their responsibility is no longer simply to oversee an emerging student loan programme, but to help build an institution capable of sustaining its own expansion.

For Ovia, that means providing the strategic and governance direction required to match NELFUND’s growing mandate with a credible financial framework.

For Sawyerr, the immediate challenge is to ensure that additional resources translate into timely payments, efficient processing and wider access for eligible students.

A broader funding base could give NELFUND greater certainty in planning, expand coverage and reduce the risk that financial constraints interrupt support to students or payments to institutions.

But the expansion of resources must be matched by transparency and accountability, particularly as more public funds enter the system.

The public will need clarity on how much is transferred into the Fund, how the money is deployed and the extent to which it ultimately reaches the students and institutions for whom the scheme was created.

With more than N322 billion already disbursed and applications approaching two million, NELFUND has reached a decisive stage.

Its success will increasingly depend not simply on the number of students it can finance, but on whether it can build a funding architecture robust enough to sustain those commitments year after year.

For Ovia and Sawyerr, therefore, the August 4 meeting with Tinubu may prove significant beyond the immediate prospect of additional funds.

Their larger challenge is to convert political backing into a durable financing framework in which the Nigeria Tax Act provides the statutory foundation, while recovered EFCC funds, dormant accounts and unclaimed dividends serve as additional resources.

If that architecture is properly established, NELFUND could move from being an ambitious government programme to a financially resilient national institution.

And that may ultimately be the real measure of Ovia and Sawyerr’s funding push: not how much additional money it receives today, but whether they help build a student loan system financially strong enough to survive changing governments, rising demand and the test of time.