Atiku Lies to smear Tinubu over BEA Scholarship Awards

By Olawale Lamina

The Democratic Front, TDF has carpeted former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of deliberately using false content created by attention-seeking social media influencers to mislead the public over the government’s Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) on foreign scholarship awards to Nigerian students.

In a statement signed by its Chairman, Danjuma Muhammadu and the Secretary, Wale Adedayo, TDF said this was a reckless yet unsuccessful attempt to discredit President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s education policy.

It said: “Our investigation on the matter did not only reveal that allegations over the abandonment of Nigerian students on foreign scholarship in Morocco were not only false and intended to tarnish the image of the government, but also that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar leveraged on the false narrative in a calculated attempt to smear the person of President Tinubu.

“TDF’s interrogation of the false claims on the non-payment of allowances to students on BEA scholarships further shows that the federal government under President Tinubu had formally jettisoned the foreign scholarship awards system, in the bid to provide capacity for Nigerian universities, and also invest massively in developing the country’s tertiary education curriculum, since April 2025.

“This is an issue that has been a major bone of contention between ASUU and successive governments in the last three decades.

“It is our position that no responsible government or stakeholder would accept a system where millions of dollars are annually expended on a scholarship scheme for the benefit of a few, privileged students abroad, to study courses that are offered within a more robust, comprehensive and engaging national academic curriculum that prepares students for real-world challenges, by both public and private universities in Nigeria.

“It is even more worrisome and disheartening that such a monumental waste of money and misplacement of priority would be sustained in the current era when NELFUND is sponsoring thousands of students to study such courses in the country.

“It is on this premise that we laud the thoughtful decision to scrap the BEA scholarship awards by the Tinubu administration.

“We happily welcome the press statement by the Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, which debunked the false claims made by social media influencers with regard to Nigerian students on Bilateral Education Agreement scholarship in Morocco.

The group took a swipe at the former VP, saying that his conduct is a reflection of his declining political value and a lack of moral responsibility for him to have relied wholly on unverified content on social media to pass judgment on such a very important issue in the public space.

TDF reminded Atiku on the need to be more circumspect on issues that require due diligence and thorough interrogations before making comments in the public space even while playing politics.