The federal government of Nigeria has reminded Nigerian students evacuated from Ukraine to transfer to local universities at home to continue their education.

Education ministry permanent secretary, Andrew David Adejo, encouraged the returnees to visit the ministry’s official site to apply for further education in any university in the country. 

He noted that the registration would be closed within three weeks, adding that 354 Nigerian students that had earlier registered were exempted from the new registration process.

“Building on an earlier advertisement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the Federal Ministry of Education (FME) wishes to request Nigerian students evacuated from Ukraine who are interested in furthering their education in Nigerian universities to visit the FME website on www.education.gov.ng (http://fsbn.com.ng/returning ) and complete the attached template,” a statement by the ministry said. “Please, for those 354 returnee students that responded to the earlier advertisement by MFA need not respond.”

It added, “This is to provide the opportunity for those returnee students who were not able to indicate interest in the earlier referenced advertisement. All interested students are by this advertisement requested to do so within three (3) weeks from the date of publication.”

Many Nigerian universities are currently on strike.

ASUU has been on strike since February over the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime to meet their demands. On Monday, the union extended the six-month strike.

On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine leaving over 80,000 international students, including Nigerians, stranded in the country. 

Meanwhile, a Twitter handle, @ChyLady, has claimed that Nigerian students who fled Ukraine face discrimination.

“Nigerian students who fled Ukraine are being discriminated against by their Ukrainian universities. The universities are pressurising the students to return to Ukraine to pay their fees for September without guaranteeing their safety,” @ChyLady tweeted. 

She added, “They have asked African students to pay for the next September session & go back into Ukraine to continue their studies while mandating that they must sign a document stating they are going back at their own risk & the Ukrainian university will not be responsible for their safety.”