RIFNOTE
Omoyele Sowore, human rights activist and founder of Sahara Reportres, says student loans are never good for a society that needs to aggressively fund education, stating that he still owes a United States university twenty years after graduation.
This is coming on the back of Student Loan Bill passed and signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Presidential Villa on Monday.
Rifnote recalls that the bill was passed by the National Assembly in November 2022, and was sponsored by the immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives and the new Chief of Staff (CoS) to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila.
The Bill allows Nigerian students in tertiary institutions to access interest-free loans from the Nigerian education loan fund.
The legislation provides for the establishment of the Nigerian education bank, which will have the power to administer, supervise, coordinate, and monitor the management of student loans in the country.
In a Facebook post, Sowore wrote : “#StudentLoans are never good for a society that needs to aggressively fund education. The #US has more or less devoured its young and old educated population with #studentloans. What Nigerian youth need now is free quantitative education at all levels. Many US citizens today are victims of education loans whereas the US spends unconscionable amounts in fighting wars that benefits none of their citizens.
”Every student in our educational institutions at the higher levels should earn nothing less than N100k per semester as study grant. Even the US has evolved past this stage and are now seeking ways to massively forgo student’s loans.
”PS: I’ve spoken extensively about loans because I am still owing student loan sharks 20 years after graduating from Columbia University in New York. Nothing good will come out students’ loans. #Revolutionnow #Educationmustbefree.”
