UK university orders some Nigerian students to exit country

Some Nigerian students studying at Teesside University have been asked to leave the United Kingdom (UK) over their failure to pay their fees, the BBC reported on Wednesday.

The students, who had previously shown proof of having enough funds to pay tuition fees and living expenses, said they could no longer meet up after their funds were significantly depleted as a result of the depreciation of the naira within the last year.

President Bola Tinubu floated the naira to unify the exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets. It worked at first but the naira immediately lost much of its value in a trend that has continued for close to a year.

Last August, PREMIUM TIMES reported how some scholars sponsored by the Nigerian government through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) to study in Malaysia wrote the government, seeking bailout funds. They cited the floating of the naira as affecting their upkeep.

TETFund later said it received similar appeals from scholars in India and Kenya.

The scholars said it became necessary to seek bailouts “to ameliorate the financial constraints occasioned by the fluctuations in the exchange rate due to the new CBN’s Naira floating policy, the impact of the pandemic, and the current economic reality.”

‘Breach of visa sponsorship’

A Teesside University spokesperson told the BBC that the Nigerian students’ failure to pay was a breach of visa sponsorship requirements and that it had no choice but to alert the Home Office.

The Home Office told the students that their permission to enter the UK had been cancelled because they stopped studying at the university, adding that visa sponsorship decisions rested with the institution.

The students have been given a date by which they must leave the country and were told they have no right of appeal or administrative review against the decision, the BBC reported.

One of the students who spoke to the BBC, Adenike Ibrahim, said she was close to handing in her dissertation at the end of two years of study when she missed one payment and was then kicked off her course and reported to the Home Office.

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Though she has now paid the outstanding fees, the student said she had not been re-enrolled and was told she must leave the country.

The university claimed it made every effort to support affected students, who had now been offered individual meetings with specialist staff and bespoke payment plans where requested.

However, a student, Esther Obigwe, said she repeatedly tried to speak to the university about her financial struggles but received no response, until she too was blocked from her studies and received notice to leave the country.