Just a day after raising concerns about unaccounted funds in Nigeria’s student loan programme, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has clarified that its earlier statement was misleading.
ICPC spokesperson, Demola Bakare, had initially claimed that only ₦28.8 billion out of the ₦100 billion released by the federal government had been disbursed to students. The implication was that ₦71.2 billion could not be accounted for. The statement also suggested there were discrepancies in how the loans were managed.
“The ICPC confirmed that a clear case of discrepancies has been established in the administration of the student loan scheme and announced that its investigation will now extend to beneficiary institutions and individual student recipients,” the commission’s earlier statement had read.
However, in a new statement released Thursday night, Bakare admitted that the previous message was incorrect due to a key omission: the word “NOT” was mistakenly left out of the paragraph that referenced established discrepancies.
“Unintentionally, the word ‘NOT’ was missing in the second to the last paragraph of our earlier press release in respect of an ongoing investigation regarding Student Loan Scheme. The missing word created an erroneous impression that the alleged discrepancies or diversion has been established,” he explained.
Bakare clarified that the commission has only confirmed the amount received and disbursed so far by the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), and that no discrepancies or diversions have been found at this stage.
He urged the public to remain patient while the investigation continues and encouraged anyone with useful information to reach out to the commission via [email protected].
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