The Special Assistant to the President on Social Media, Hon. Dada Olusegun has called out an Obidient Influencer and Labour Party Chieftain, Morris Monye over his hypocritical flip flops on the student loan scheme.
This followed a misguided quoted post by Morris Monye on his X handle where he insinuated that no single University in the South East is among the list of institutions which has so far received student loan disbursement as published by NELFUND.
Morris Monye who is notorious for spewing propaganda and amplifying false news on 13th March, 2024 posted on his X handle that the federal government has canceled the student loans and went on to mock the ruling APC by describing the party as All Promises Cancelled and labelled the student loan scheme as APC propaganda.
The Special Assistant to the President on Social Media, Dada Olusegun in response to Morris Monye’s apparent misinformation on the disbursement of student loans in South East institutions reminded the Obidient fake news merchant how few months ago he labeled the student loan scheme an APC propaganda.
Dada Olusegun also unearthed an old tweet by Morris Monye in October, 2023 where he said: “Oh by the way, the student loan scheme by APC was propaganda. You make outlandish proclamations and get applause. No means to implement.”
Morris Monye actively discredited the landmark student loan scheme from inception. He used his platform to discourage many of his followers who may have listened to his misinformation gospel about the student loan and refrained from applying or encouraging their family and friends who are eligible to apply.
This campaign against the student loan was however not carried out by only Morris Monye, a lot of other opposition voices on social media, mostly Obidients from the Southern part of Nigeria, gleefully labelled the scheme a scam. These combined campaign may have resulted in the poor enrolment numbers the scheme recorded from southern tertiary institutions with South East recording the least.
It is likely that Morris Monye’s attempt to discredit the student loan was because his preferred presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi was defeated in the 2023 presidential election. In November, 2022 Morris Monye mischievously sought to ascribe the student loan idea to Mr. Peter Obi. This was despite facts in the public domain that President Bola Tinubu has been publicly talking about student loans since 2015.
The student loan bill itself that institutionalised the scheme was a brainchild of the Chief of Staff to the President, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila who introduced the bill in the House of Representatives in 2019 while he was Speaker of the Green Chambers. Eventually the 9th Assembly passed the bill at the twilight of its life.
NELFUND has repeatedly provided clarity on the issue of number of institutions that have received disbursement so far from NELFUND, which has seen South East institutions missing. In response to a comment by an X user Santiago Leo on 23rd August insinuating that SE institutions were deliberately overlooked in the disbursement of student loans, NELFUND said:
“Thank you for your concern. It’s important to clarify that geopolitical zones are not a factor in the disbursement process. NELFUND sent a verification list to every institution eligible for disbursement. Payments are being made to institutions that have responded to this verification. Unfortunately, we have not yet received any response from the institutions in the South-East. We urge these institutions to complete the verification process so that their students can benefit from the scheme.”
From the above, it is obvious that apart from the low enrolment numbers by students in public tertiary institutions in the South East, the management of these institutions are to blame for the non-disbursement of loans to those who had applied from their various institutions. According to NELFUND, none of the participating institutions have responded NELFUND request.