Kogi disburses N646.8m student bursary, raises allowance by 150%

Kogi State Governor, Usman Ododo, has flagged off the disbursement of N646.8 million as bursary allowance to 20,347 verified Kogi State students in tertiary institutions across the country under the second season of his students support programme.

The flag-off ceremony, tagged “Gov. Ododo Students Support Season 2,” was held on Thursday at the Banquet Hall, Government House, Lokoja.

Speaking at the event, the Executive Chairman of the Kogi State Scholarship Board, Mr Afolabi Joseph-Raji, said the Ododo administration revived the bursary scheme, which was last paid in 2019, and recommenced it in 2024 with a 150 per cent increment.

“The allowance was increased from N12,000 to N30,000 per student, while medical students who used to receive N18,000 will now get N75,000 each,” he said.

Joseph-Raji said the governor abolished the old practice where students paid N650 for scratch cards to access the portal without guarantee of payment, directing that the application must be free, paperless, online and transparent.

He disclosed that in the 2024/2025 session, the Board disbursed N256.4 million to 8,549 undergraduates at N30,000 each and N60.3 million to Law School students at N300,000 each, in addition to other scholarships totalling N261 million.

For the 2025/2026 session, Joseph-Raji announced that 20,347 students had been screened and verified, with undergraduates to receive N30,000 each and medical students N75,000 each, totalling N646.8 million.

He explained, “Payment will be in phases, beginning with students in institutions within Kogi State, while students in over 300 institutions outside the state, including UniAbuja, ABU Zaria, UNIJOS and BUK, will be paid in the second tranche.”

The first tranche of N403 million, he said, would cover 13,157 students studying in tertiary institutions within the state.

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Joseph-Raji also announced new initiatives introduced to deepen student engagement, including the Governor Ododo Campus Quiz Challenge and the Radio Quiz Challenge airing every Saturday at 12 noon on Confluence 94.1 FM, where students win up to N5,000. He added that the Board, which had no operational vehicle for campus verification, had been given a seven-seater utility vehicle to ease mobilisation.

Speaking on behalf of the Governor, the Commissioner for Education, Hon. Wemi Jones, commended the leadership of the National Association of Kogi State Students for their patience and peaceful conduct during the delay, describing education’s 30 per cent share of the state budget as evidence of the governor’s passion for the sector.

Jones described the leap from 8,000 applicants in Season 1 to over 20,000 verified beneficiaries in Season 2, an increase of over 130 per cent, as monumental, and listed other government interventions including payment of Common Entrance, Basic Six, BECE and WAEC fees for SS3 students in public schools, NABTEB for technical college students and free CBT training for SS3 students.

He also urged students to take advantage of the Federal Government’s NELFUND loan scheme, observing that only a few students at the event indicated they were benefiting.

Responding on behalf of students, the outgoing President of NAKOSS, Comrade Sunday Adeola Simon, thanked Governor Ododo for the intervention, saying it goes beyond financial assistance to show that students’ welfare remains a priority.

Simon said that although the application, which flagged off in September 2025, faced delays and enormous pressure on student leadership, they chose dialogue and responsible representation and rejected calls to confront the government through violence and propaganda.

He affirmed Kogi students’ continued support for the administration while appealing to the governor to include students studying outside the state and those in the Nigeria Law School in the disbursement, so no student is left behind.

Student bursary schemes have long been a feature of state government welfare interventions in Nigeria, designed to ease the financial burden on undergraduates and their families in a country where the cost of tertiary education continues to rise and funding from the federal government to public universities remains inadequate.