VeryDarkMan has challenged a press release issued by the Federal Ministry of Education on Nigerian students in Morocco, arguing that while the government says no scholar was abandoned, its own admission that payments stopped at the 2024 budget year proves otherwise. Responding to the statement, VDM said the issue was being misrepresented and insisted that students on multi-year scholarship programmes were left without support once funding ended.
In the press release on Wednesday, the Federal Government said it had “firmly debunked misleading narratives” surrounding Nigerian scholarship students in Morocco, describing such claims as “false, unfounded, and deliberately crafted to misinform the public.” The statement said no Nigerian student on a valid Federal Government scholarship had been abandoned.
The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa CON, said, “All beneficiaries duly enrolled under the Bilateral Education Scholarship (BES) Programme prior to 2024 have received payments up to the 2024 budget year,” adding that “any temporary delays in outstanding payments are attributable to fiscal constraints.”
VDM, however, argued that the same statement contradicted itself. “The minister said what I posted was false, yet the same statement admits that payments were only made up to the 2024 budget year,” he said. According to him, scholarships are not one-year programmes and cannot simply stop because a budget cycle has ended.
He questioned how students admitted before 2024 were expected to survive afterward. “If a scholarship programme runs for five, six, or seven years, what happens to students after the budget year ends?” VDM added, “You cannot say students were not abandoned when you are also saying payments stopped at 2024.”
The government also stated that “no new bilateral scholarship awards were made in October 2025 or at any time thereafter,” describing documents suggesting otherwise as “fake” and “unauthenticated.” VDM rejected this claim, saying he had seen award letters dated September 2025. “There are documents showing scholarship award letters dated September 2025, despite claims that no new awards were made.”
VDM further cited official letters showing that allowances for existing students were reduced in July 2024 due to exchange rate pressures. He said monthly stipends were cut from 500 to 220, while other benefits were adjusted. “Allowance reductions were introduced in July 2024, but newer award letters still carried the old figures,” he said, arguing that this created room for students to be shortchanged.
He maintained that “this issue did not start in 2025; some students have been owed allowances since 2023,” VDM said, referencing government correspondence that acknowledged arrears for previous years.
According to VDM, “the problem is not limited to Morocco; students in other countries are also affected,” he said, citing earlier complaints by Nigerian students studying in countries such as Russia who reportedly went months without stipends.
He also referred to legislative attention on the matter, noting that the House of Representatives had previously invited officials for an investigative hearing over alleged failure to pay scholarship stipends. “If everything was properly handled, there would be no need for investigations by the House of Representatives,” he said.
In its statement, the Federal Government said it had discontinued government-funded bilateral scholarships abroad after a policy review, explaining that Nigeria now had sufficient capacity to deliver such programmes locally. It added that only scholarships fully funded by foreign governments would continue and that students already enrolled under previous arrangements would be supported until completion.
The ministry also offered affected students the option of returning to Nigeria. According to the statement, students who choose to discontinue their studies abroad may write to the Director of Scholarship Awards and will be reintegrated into tertiary institutions in Nigeria, with return travel costs covered.
VDM insisted that explanations were not enough and called for action. He said students abroad were struggling due to unpaid stipends and reduced allowances, stressing that the government should either fully fund the programmes or stop sending students overseas.
“You cannot keep issuing statements while students are stranded,” he said, adding that clearing outstanding payments was the only way to resolve the crisis.
