President Bola Tinubu announced on Monday that the Student Loan Scheme, which he approved on June 12, 2023, will be initiated in January 2024. He also assured that recurring incidents of strikes by academic staff unions in tertiary institutions would be a thing of the past.
Tinubu made this announcement during the opening of the 29th session of the annual Nigeria Economic Summit at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja. The Nigeria Economic Summit is organized by the non-profit think-tank, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group.
While outlining his administration’s strategies to stabilize the economy in collaboration with all stakeholders, especially the private sector, President Tinubu stressed the importance of launching a sustainable credit scheme. He argued that such a scheme would support effective anti-corruption efforts.
He stated, “There must be consumer credit, and the scheme should be implemented as soon as possible. I thank my team and my colleagues for developing this program. We cannot discuss anti-corruption when people have to search for cash to buy a car, and there’s no mortgage for homeownership.”
Tinubu’s announcement came shortly after he approved a partial waiver of the “No Work, No Pay” Order that had been imposed on striking members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities. This strike, which began on February 14, 2022, and ended on October 17, 2022, lasted for eight months. The waiver allows previously striking members of ASUU to receive four months of withheld salary accruals out of the eight months affected by the industrial action.