“Students Will Pull Out of School”: ASUU Reacts to Newly Signed Student Loan

ASUU President, Osodeke.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has reacted to the newly signed Student Loan Act by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, stating that many students will withdraw from school. President Tinubu had on Monday, June 12, signed the Student Loan Bill into law to help indigent students go through higher education.

Speaking with journalists on Wednesday, June 14, ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said the Student Loan Act has the potential of sending many students out of school, Vanguard reported.

He said:

“A country where more than 133 million are living below the poverty line and you want to introduce tuition fees? It will be counterproductive. “Every Nigerian should know what is going to happen next and there may likely be another bill waiting for signature that will introduce tuition fees. “If the bill indicated that the loan is to pay tuition fees and there are no tuition fees in Nigerian universities, then what is your next approach?” 

Osodeke disclosed that the bill is not actually new because ASUU had rejected it when immediate former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration brought it up. The ASUU Chairman, however, admitted that there was need for the union to study it but it yet to have access to the accurate copy of the law signed by Tinubu.

Osodeke added:

“We have said long ago, in 2017, to President Buhari when they came up with the issue of tuition fees, that every student will pay N1 million and we said you cannot put that in our agreement and you cannot use that to negotiate with us and with the nature of the country we have today, there is no way that will work.”