President Bola Tinubu’s administration okayed a secret scholarship programme seeking the enrolment of Nigerian secondary school graduates into suicide drone factories in Russia, People Gazette can report.

A 2023 scholarship advertisement released by the Federal Ministry of Education and seen by The Gazette on Friday sought high school graduates interested in joining a vocational training project at Alabuga Polytechnic College in Russia.

“This is to inform all qualified Nigerian candidates of ages 18-22, holding O’Level certificates, that the Special Economic Zone of Alabuga, Yelabuzhsky District, Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation, offers admission and vocational training project ‘Alabuga Start’ in Alabuga Polytech College for the 2023/2024 Academic Session,” read the advertisement.

The programmes listed for vocational training include industrial robotics, microelectronics, industrial automation, BIM design, and Chemistry, among others.

Alabuga, known to be the largest and most successful special economic zone of industrial and production type in Russia, houses factories where Iranian-designed suicide drones are produced for the Russian military. The factories started producing drones shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

A 2025 Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crimes report revealed that over 300 women between 18 and 22 years were recruited from around the world, mostly from Africa and Latin America, allegedly under the guise of a “work-study programme,” and ended up working in the drone factories in Alabuga.

According to The Associated Press, some of the African women recruited into the programme in the name of hospitality and catering toiled in factories to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.

“To fill an urgent labour shortage in wartime Russia, the Kremlin has been recruiting women aged 18-22 from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America,” wrote AP in an interview with victims published last year.

It added, “That has put some of Moscow’s key weapons production in the inexperienced hands of about 200 African women who are working alongside Russian vocational students as young as 16 in the plant in Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) east of Moscow.”

Ukraine repeatedly targeted the location where the drones were being manufactured, resulting in the injury of a lot of young Africans working there on cheap labour.

The programme had seen Russia making suicide drones for Iran, which were allegedly used to attack Israel and any other interests of the United States.

Amid the escalating Israel-Gaza conflict and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s relationship with Israel has become increasingly strained, with President Vladimir Putin backing away from his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023.

As of the time of this report, presidential aide Bayo Onanuga has not responded to a request seeking comments on whether Nigeria, under Mr Tinubu, has abandoned the country’s long-held non-aligned stance and sided with Russia against the United States and Israel.