The decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to float the naira seems to be taking a toll on Nigerian students studying in other countries, especially the United Kingdom.
Thousands of Nigerian students in the UK have been finding things difficult since the CBN decided to unify the foreign exchange rates two weeks after President Bola Tinubu assumed office.
The CBN decided to float the naira at the Investors and Exporters’ Window of the foreign exchange market. Since then, the naira has fallen from N471/dollar to N750/dollar and N589.4/pound to N957.2/pound.
Some students, who lamented the sharp increase, say their tuition has hit an all-time high of over 60 percent since the naira float.
“This policy is affecting those of us here and even intending students. My sibling has had to forfeit her admission because of this policy,” Deborah Adejo, a Nigerian student resident in Manchester told Punch.
“Many students have fallen victim to online scammers just because they want to buy pounds, a friend of mine, for example, was a victim of third-party purchase as the banks at home are not dependable,” she added.
Another Nigerian student studying in Leeds explained that the major challenge was that many kept their tuition fees in their naira account at the former rate.
“Now they have to start looking for more money because the rate has gone up. If the official rate is not different from street rate, so what’s the essence of waiting for several weeks for your bank when you can just get it from third-party platform. It has only put more pressure on the students to look for more money,” the student, who craved anonymity said.
“If you put N5m in your account in March when the rate was around N560/£, that means it will pay around £9k tuition fee, but by July, the N5m will only be able to pay around £5k since the rate is now around 1k/£, so that’s where the real problem is. You need to start looking for an additional £4k. That’s the challenges many students are facing,” the source added.
Another Nigerian student recently lost his access to the school portal due to failure to raise the required 4,800 pounds to complete his tuition.
The Liverpool John Moores University student who is allowed to work for 20-hours a week, said he could not get a better job as prospective employers often demand proof that he is allowed to work while in school.
“The school has withdrawn my access to its platform. As a result, I can’t check the results of my last exam. Everything is done via the platform. I cannot also access my official email given by the school. I can’t attend both online and in-person classes again. It is very frustrating, I am completely shut out.
“In fairness to the school, I was given several deadlines which I missed. I could not pay because I was unable to raise enough funds to buy foreign exchange. The exchange rate is very high,” he added.
The United Kingdom is one of the destinations of choice for many Nigerians as 128,770 Nigerian students enrolled in universities in the UK between 2015 and 2022 according to data from the country’s Higher Education Statistics Agency.
