Phrank Shaibu, The Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of misleading Nigerians over his government’s funding of the Federal Government’s student loan scheme.
According to Shaibu who made the remarks on Monday during an interview on Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese Ijebu, the student loan programme was not being financed with savings from fuel subsidy removal.
Shaibu alleged that the Tinubu administration was diverting subsidy savings to political allies while relying on recoveries from financial crimes and unclaimed dividends to fund education loans for Nigerian students.
“It is a lie from the pit of hell. Tinubu is not paying student loans from monies that came from removal of fuel subsidy. He is sharing that money between himself, his friends and associates”, he insisted.
The Atiku aide also criticised the administration’s borrowing profile, questioning why the Federal Government was still accumulating debt despite claiming that subsidy removal had significantly increased government revenue.
“He is still taking loans like a drunken sailor. He has taken more loans than all the presidents that have ruled Nigeria combined since independence.”
Shaibu further alleged that proceeds recovered from financial crimes and unclaimed dividends belonging to deceased Nigerians were being used to finance student loans, describing such funds as inappropriate for funding the education of young Nigerians.
“That money he is using to give loans to our children is money that is cursed. In Islam, we call it haram.”
He argued that if the government needed to support the education of future doctors, engineers, astronauts and other professionals, it should do so with legitimate public revenue rather than what he described as “proceeds of crime.”
