DINO MELAYE GETS NELFUND MATHS WRONG ₦20,000 Is Upkeep, Not School Fees — The ADC Chieftain’s Attack Misses the Point

There is legitimate room to question, scrutinise and even criticise the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).

But criticism of a public policy should at least begin with an accurate understanding of the policy being criticised.

That is where former Kogi West Senator and African Democratic Congress (ADC) chieftain, Dino Melaye, appears to have missed the mark.

Melaye reportedly described NELFUND as a “haven of corruption” and questioned why President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration claims to be paying students’ school fees when, according to him, students are being given only ₦20,000.

His question “Which government school takes ₦20,000 as annual school fees?” — sounds punchy.

But it attacks a claim NELFUND is not making.

The ₦20,000 is not the student’s annual school fee. It is the approved monthly upkeep allowance.

NELFUND’s own official explanation is unambiguous: the student loan has separate components for institutional charges and upkeep. After an application is verified, payment for institutional charges is made to the student’s institution, while the upkeep component is paid into the student’s bank account.

In fact, NELFUND’s latest figures make the distinction even clearer.

As of September 3, 2026, the Fund said it had disbursed ₦355.87 billion since the student-loan portal opened in May 2024. Of that amount, ₦192.89 billion had gone to 319 beneficiary institutions as institutional fees, while ₦162.98 billion had been disbursed to students as upkeep allowances.

So, where exactly is the ₦20,000 “annual school fee” in this equation?

It isn’t there.

The ₦20,000 is a monthly upkeep allowance. NELFUND confirmed in March 2026 that the approved upkeep allowance remained ₦20,000 monthly.

This does not mean NELFUND should be above scrutiny.

Far from it.

Questions about how beneficiaries are selected, how much individual institutions receive, whether students receive their full entitlements, how institutional charges are verified, how quickly schools are paid and how the Fund prevents abuse are entirely legitimate.

Indeed, NELFUND itself has had to deal with complaints and disputes surrounding institutional charges and student payments. There have also been reports of significant increases in fees at some institutions, raising legitimate questions about how far the loan can stretch as tertiary education becomes increasingly expensive.

But those are different questions from claiming that the government is pretending to pay school fees because students receive ₦20,000.

That is not a criticism of NELFUND’s performance. It is a misunderstanding of the architecture of the scheme.

And that raises an uncomfortable question for a former senator:

How can a politician who spent years in the National Assembly condemn a public programme without first distinguishing between money paid to an institution for institutional charges and money paid directly to a student for upkeep?

The political arena thrives on sound bites.

But public accountability cannot survive on sound bites alone.

If Melaye has evidence that NELFUND funds are being stolen, diverted, fraudulently disbursed or improperly accounted for, Nigerians deserve the evidence.

If he believes the ₦20,000 monthly upkeep allowance is inadequate, he should make that case.

If he believes the government is overstating the number of students whose institutional charges have actually been covered, he should produce the figures.

Those would be serious arguments.

But “Which government school takes ₦20,000 as annual school fees?” is built on a false premise because the ₦20,000 is not being presented as annual school fees in the first place.

The Press Nigeria believes public officials and political actors should be held to a higher standard when discussing policies that affect millions of Nigerians.

Criticise NELFUND. Investigate NELFUND. Demand transparency from NELFUND.

But first, get the maths and the categories right.

Because in this particular argument, the problem may not be NELFUND’s arithmetic.

It may be Dino Melaye’s.