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The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has said it will introduce a wallet-based payment system to enable students to authorise direct payment of their approved tuition fees to their institutions, in a move to prevent double payments and eliminate disputes over refunds.

The new system is expected to take effect in the 2026/2027 academic session.

Already, the pilot phase has commenced, with more than 400,000 applications recorded ahead of the planned rollout next academic session.

The Managing Director of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed this during a media briefing on the proposed NELFUND 2.0 regional workshops across the six geopolitical zones on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said the system would allow students to initiate payments through their phones, with approved funds transferred directly to their respective institutions rather than their personal bank accounts.

‘We are putting the power for payment in the hands of the students. The payment to the institution will now be walletised, so that students can click on their phone and the institution is paid directly,’ Sawyerr said.

He explained that the new arrangement was designed to address cases where students paid their fees independently because they were unaware that NELFUND had already remitted the money to their institutions.

‘For example, we paid the institution on Monday. The student did not know on Tuesday that we had paid and paid again by Wednesday to meet a deadline. Then on Friday they heard we had paid,’ he said, explaining how duplicate payments had led to refund requests.

Sawyerr said the new system would ensure that students knew when their payments were made, while institutions would receive the funds directly.

Also speaking, Executive Director of Operations of NELFUND, Mustapha Iyal, said the digital tokens would be tied to specific institutions and could neither be transferred to students’ personal accounts nor redirected to other schools.

‘The token is attached to an institution. It is not a personal wallet like a mobile money wallet. Each token is attached to a certain institution, so it only goes there,’ Iyal said.

He stressed that students would not receive cash through the system, but would authorise payments directly to their schools.

‘We are not giving students money, but we are giving them power,’ he said.

Iyal explained that the funds could only be transferred to the institution for which the loan was approved.

‘If you are going to the University of Maiduguri and you have a token that says your fees have been approved, if you push the button, N200,000 will go to that school account. That person cannot send that money to Borno State University,’ he said.

He added: ‘If they don’t push the button, the money doesn’t go anywhere. It can never be transferred to the personal account of the student or anyone else. It can only go in one direction, to one spot. It’s a one-to-one push.’

He said the system would also address complaints over delayed refunds, noting that NELFUND paid tuition directly to institutions and did not hold students’ money for subsequent refunds.

‘We are not encouraging refunds because that’s not what NELFUND is set up for,’ he said, urging students who needed financial assistance to apply early and complete the process before the stipulated deadline.

He also cautioned institutions against asking students to pay their fees with the promise of subsequent refunds.

The executive director said NELFUND was developing a portal that would enable parents to check whether their children’s school fees had been paid by entering their matriculation numbers.

‘The portal would indicate whether payment had been made without disclosing the amount, a measure he said would help prevent students from collecting money from their parents after their fees had been settled through the scheme,’ Iyal said.

Iyal said the initiative followed instances in which institutions failed to notify students promptly after receiving payments, leaving beneficiaries unaware that their fees had been settled.

Sawyerr said the proposed NELFUND 2.0 regional workshops would prepare participating institutions and stakeholders for the upgraded Student Loan Application System as the fund anticipates increased demand for loans.

He clarified that the prospect of applications rising to two million referred to expected demand rather than an increase in available funding.

‘The demand is huge, and I’m not sure we will ever have enough funds to cope with it,’ he said, adding that the fund needed to strengthen its technology, systems and processes to manage the growing number of applications.

The workshops, themed ‘NELFUND 2.0: Transforming Access, Simplifying Applications and Empowering Students,’will bring together institutional heads, bursars, desk officers, IT administrators, students and community representatives.

The sessions will focus on application procedures, institutional verification, technical readiness and improved service delivery, with the aim of reducing errors and strengthening coordination between NELFUND and participating institutions.

The Federal Government is partnering with military-linked investment institutions to provide security for large-scale agricultural investments and restore investor confidence in areas affected by insecurity.

The initiative is expected to help unlock, among other agriculture projects, multibillion-dollar soybean and sugarcane projects in Yobe and Jigawa states, where security concerns have made it difficult to attract the capital needed to develop them.

The Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI), Integranium Holdings, and the Defence Agricultural Assets and Projects Development Company (DAPCO), supported by Defence Holding Company Limited, are working together to create a framework that combines investment mobilisation with security and project management.

MOFI’s Executive Director of Investments and the official responsible for the Integranium investment framework, Dr. Femi Ogunseinde, said the partnership would enable the institutions to return to prospective investors with a security arrangement designed to protect their investments.

He said security had been one of the major obstacles preventing domestic and international investors from committing funds to large-scale agricultural projects in Nigeria.

‘We have a soybean initiative in Yobe, we have a sugarcane initiative in Jigawa-all large-scale, all multibillion-dollar projects,’ Ogunseinde said.

He explained that attracting investors had been difficult without assurances that their money and agricultural operations would be protected.

‘Without having that security anchor to ensure that whatever comes from wherever to invest, the investments are safe, it becomes very difficult for us to do anything,’ he said.

Ogunseinde said the new partnership would provide a platform through which the government and its partners could approach prospective investors and demonstrate that arrangements were being developed to address their security concerns.

He said the initiative was intended to attract substantial private-sector and international financing into agricultural production, rather than depend solely on public funds.

The agreement is expected to cover risk management, security planning and project management, with DAPCO working alongside MOFI and its investment partners to develop and implement agricultural projects.

The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DAPCO, Aliyu Abdulhameed, said the defence establishment’s role was to ensure that financing reached agricultural opportunities in rural areas under secure and properly structured arrangements.

He explained that agricultural investments often take place far from major urban centres, making security a critical consideration for investors.

The partnership, he said, would enable the institutions to combine their respective strengths to develop agricultural projects across the country.

Ogunseinde said the partners had already identified several opportunities and expected at least one project to break ground before the end of the year.

He did not identify the project or give a specific commencement date.

The partners are expected to assess each project individually, considering its financial viability, investment potential, due diligence requirements and value for money before proceeding.

Beyond the immediate security arrangements, the initiative is designed to attract investment into Nigeria’s vast agricultural resources and increase the country’s capacity to produce food for domestic consumption, industrial use and export.

Ogunseinde said an estimated 30 million to 35 million hectares of land could be available for farming, providing considerable scope for expanding large-scale agricultural production.

He said the partnership would help create a platform for investors interested in developing that potential, including companies and financiers from outside Nigeria.

The aim, he explained, was to achieve scale by bringing together land, capital, agricultural expertise and the security arrangements needed to support commercial farming.

Although Ogunseinde discussed the possibility of attracting investments worth $1 billion to $2 billion, he did not present the amounts as funds already committed to the partnership.

There were no words on the total investment value of the broad agreement.

The Group Managing Director of Defence Holding Company Limited, Air Vice Marshal A. V. Ndache, said the memorandum of understanding signed by the institutions was a broad agreement covering agriculture, hospitality and other investment areas.

He said more detailed agreements would be developed for the individual projects as the partnership progresses.

Ndache said the initiative was intended to benefit Nigeria by improving national productivity, adding that food security was a priority for President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

The Managing Director of MOFI’s investment partner said the agricultural initiative was also expected to help address food inflation by increasing the volume of food produced locally.

Dr. Armstrong Takang said Nigeria needed to make better use of its land, water resources and people to produce sufficient food for households and industries, while generating additional supplies for export.

He said the partnership would focus on developing bankable agribusiness opportunities capable of attracting funding from both public and private investors.

The projects are expected to support large-scale agricultural operators and encourage more investment across the farming value chain.

Takang also said the initiative could create additional demand for fertiliser supplied through MOFI’s holdings and produced by Nigerian companies.

He referred to PFI NPK, the Fertilizer Aggregation Company, as one of the businesses that could benefit from an expanded market for agricultural inputs.

He said increased agricultural activity could create a larger market for fertiliser and help improve soil productivity, leading to higher food production.

The initiative is also expected to extend economic opportunities to communities around the farms. Abdulhameed said surrounding communities would be involved in projects established in their areas, allowing the benefits of investment to spread beyond the immediate farm operations.

He added that serving military personnel and veterans, particularly those from the armed forces, would be among the groups the partnership intends to involve in agricultural projects.

The partners also plan to use technology, innovation and improved farming skills to increase productivity and make better use of available land.

Ogunseinde after the signing, said insecurity had affected farming operations and contributed to the abandonment of some farmlands, limiting the country’s ability to produce all the food it needs locally.

He said a successful programme would see a substantial share of food production coming through the partnership’s projects.

Agriculture was estimated by the speaker to contribute between 25 and 27 per cent of Nigeria’s gross domestic product. He said expanding production could strengthen the sector’s contribution to the economy while improving food security.

The initiative also aims to produce agricultural goods that meet the requirements of both domestic and international markets, potentially opening more opportunities for exports.

But the partners have yet to state specific production targets, the number of hectares to be cultivated under the programme, the number of jobs expected to be created, or the total funding required.

The memorandum of understanding establishes the broad framework for cooperation, while individual projects will have to undergo further assessment and structuring before their implementation.

The partners said details of the projects would be made public as they become ready for rollout.