According to a news report from Leadership, Comrade Issa Aremu, the Director-General of Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS) in Ilorin, Kwara State, has praised the inauguration of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) by President Bola Tinubu.

Aremu highlighted the significance of the fund, noting that 170,000 applicants from universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education now have accounts with NELFUND, with 110,000 of them having successfully completed the loan application process and awaiting disbursements.

He made this commendation during the 2024 Nelson Mandela Day celebration held at MINILS. It is worth recalling that the United Nations declared July 18 as Nelson Mandela Day, with the inaugural edition launched on July 18, 2009.

The 2024 event with the theme; “Nelson Mandela Day (NMD): Combating Poverty and Inequality”, was the fourth edition since the assumption of duty of Aremu as the chief executive of the institute.

Aremu observed that the real sustainable solution against poverty is “mass quality affordable education”, recalling that the late Mandela once observed that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

“The issue is not to agonize about poverty but initiate policy initiatives such as NELFUND as President Tinubu has done to give loans at zero interest rate to the children of the poor to access higher education,” he said.

He urged Nigerians to support the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Tinubu administration in the areas of food security, poverty eradication, growth, job creation, access to capital, inclusion, rule of law, and fight against corruption.

Aremu also hailed the creation of the new Federal Ministry of Livestock Development to manage the nation’s trillion naira livestock economy.

While agreeing with the United Nations secretary general, Anthonio Gueterres, that the world was “unequal and divided”, the MINILS boss urged Nigerians to keep hope alive, noting that the New Hope agenda of President Tinubu was capable of eradicating poverty and inequalities in Nigeria.