The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has urged the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) to ensure that funds approved by the Federal Government for student loans are channelled directly to indigent students, while strengthening safeguards against diversion and other financial crimes.
Ola Olukoyede, EFCC Chairman, gave the charge on Wednesday in Abuja during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the anti-graft agency and NELFUND at the EFCC corporate headquarters.
The agreement is designed to deepen collaboration between both institutions, prevent financial infractions and promote accountability in the management and disbursement of proceeds of crime allocated for educational support.
Olukoyede described NELFUND as one of the major legacy projects of the President Bola Tinubu-led administration, while commending its management for the progress recorded in expanding students’ access to education financing.
He said the EFCC’s responsibility went beyond recovering proceeds of crime, stressing that recovered funds should also be deployed productively for the benefit of Nigerians.
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Under the MoU, the EFCC and NELFUND will establish a joint Fraud Assessment and Control Unit to monitor compliance with established guidelines and strengthen controls around the management of funds.
Olukoyede said the partnership should place greater emphasis on preventing financial crimes rather than waiting until funds had been stolen before taking action.
He said the EFCC would work with NELFUND to examine its processes, identify vulnerabilities and strengthen internal controls to ensure that funds meant for students reached the intended beneficiaries.
‘There are certain things you might not have addressed your mind to, because that is what we do. We could give all your attention to it. We don’t have to necessarily wait for money to be stolen before we go into action.
‘Why can’t we provide more prevention? Even if it doesn’t occur at the level of the organisation, across or along the chain, something could happen,’ he said.
The EFCC chairman said the welfare of young Nigerians was also a major reason for the commission’s interest in supporting NELFUND.
According to him, a substantial proportion of persons investigated for cybercrime are young people, including students in some cases.
He said deploying recovered proceeds of crime to support students could help address some of the vulnerabilities that expose young people to economic crimes.
‘Whatever we recover from these proceeds of crime, why can’t we use it to also support them?’ he asked.
Olukoyede further advised NELFUND to explore mechanisms that would enable funds to be disbursed directly to beneficiaries, subject to appropriate verification by educational institutions.
He said universities and other tertiary institutions could assist in authenticating students’ identities and ensuring that only genuine beneficiaries accessed the funds.
‘Let it go directly to the human beings,’ he said, emphasising the EFCC’s interest in ensuring that recovered funds ultimately benefited the people for whom they were intended.
He also urged NELFUND to access only funds legitimately due to it and ensure that such resources were applied promptly for their designated purposes.
Olukoyede expressed confidence that the agreement would strengthen risk assessment, improve accountability and establish safeguards that would protect the student financing programme beyond the tenure of the current leadership of both institutions.
Earlier, Akintunde Sawyer, NELFUND Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, commended the EFCC for its support and emphasis on preventing economic crimes before they occurred.
Sawyer said the EFCC’s preventive approach had assisted NELFUND in developing stronger standards of transparency and accountability in managing its resources.
He disclosed that NELFUND had processed 1.6 million applications, with 960,000 loans approved, while recently upgrading its systems and launching a new portal.
According to him, the organisation receives applications, processes approvals and makes disbursements electronically, with funds transferred through formal banking channels without the use of cash.
Sawyer said payments to students were made directly into their bank accounts, using identifiers including the National Identification Number (NIN), Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) registration details, matriculation numbers and Bank Verification Number (BVN) for verification.
He recalled his commitment to ensuring that NELFUND’s operations remained fully transparent, with every transaction leaving an electronic record that could be reviewed in the future.
‘We’ve been taken to task many times on various allegations, suspicions, uncertainty. Say, look, all the records are there. It’s all electronic. If there’s anything wrong, you’ll find it,’ he said.
Sawyer said the system was deliberately designed to eliminate unnecessary intermediaries and reduce opportunities for manipulation, stressing that applicants should not require personal connections within NELFUND to access the scheme.
‘We wanted to make sure that there are no gateways, no middlemen in between, down to the point where we don’t need anybody to approve you as top civil servant or top judge. We don’t want anybody in the middle of this process, and we made sure that anyone who applies for this loan does not need to know anybody at NELFA.
‘Of course, they interact with us if they have difficulties, but they don’t need to know us at all. The bulk of the money goes to the institutions,’ he said.
He added that NELFUND was committed to building systems that would remain functional beyond the tenure of individual officials, stressing the importance of checks and balances and multiple layers of oversight.
‘It’s not personal. We need to ensure that this country can run and run and run without it being all because it’s this person or that person,’ Sawyer said.
The NELFUND chief also expressed appreciation to the EFCC for its role in recovering funds used to support the education financing programme, acknowledging the risks undertaken by EFCC personnel during the recovery of proceeds of crime.
He said the MoU represented another step towards ensuring that recovered funds were not diverted after recovery but reached the students for whom they were intended.
The collaboration, according to the EFCC, is expected to strengthen preventive controls, improve transparency and enhance accountability in the management of funds dedicated to supporting Nigerian students.