We list 4 fellowship Scholarships for Nigerian Students in Canada, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 2 of them are fully funded. 2 state eligibility that includes Nigerian applicants.
Written from the 4 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This page collects 4 fellowship scholarships in Canada open to Nigerian students. Every entry is a fellowship rather than a standard taught degree, and every one is hosted at a Canadian institution. Two of the four are labelled Fully Funded in the award's own text. The remaining two do not state their funding position either way, so treat those pages as the place to confirm what is actually covered before you build a budget around them.
The providers named on this list are the University of British Columbia, McGill University and the University of Manitoba. Three of the four sit with a named Canadian university; the Manitoba fellowship is listed by the institution itself. If you are searching for awards that carry a stipend, a research allowance or a fee waiver, start with the two fully funded entries and read the other two with a checklist of questions.
Fellowships in Canada are mostly research awards, and the levels attached to this list reflect that. All four are tagged as fellowships, three also carry a PhD tag, two carry a Masters tag, one carries a Bachelors tag and one is postdoctoral. Those tags overlap because a single award can serve more than one stage of study, so do not read them as four separate piles of money.
For a Nigerian reader, the practical question is which of your qualifications fits. A fellowship tagged at Masters or PhD level normally expects a completed bachelor's degree, and where a PhD is named, a master's is usually the entry point. The postdoctoral entry on this list is for someone who has already finished a doctorate. If you hold an HND, check the individual award page directly, because fellowship pages in Canada often state a minimum degree class rather than describing a conversion route.
Two of the four awards are open to Nigerian applicants. Of those two, none names Nigeria or the African region in its eligibility text, and both are open because they carry no nationality restriction at all. The other two awards do not state their eligibility on the award page, which means the answer is not written down rather than closed off. Read those two pages in full, then email the graduate school if the nationality question is still unclear.
This is the pattern to expect with Canadian fellowships. Many are internal university awards, and internal awards are frequently open to any student admitted to the relevant programme, regardless of passport. That does not make them automatic. It means the barrier is admission and academic fit, not citizenship.
Among the four, one award states that it covers living costs, one states that it covers travel, and one states that it covers research or training costs. Two are labelled fully funded. Two do not state a funding position, and nothing on this page should be read as describing what those two provide.
For budgeting purposes, a Canadian fellowship that names living costs is the one that matters most, because tuition and rent in Canadian cities are the two lines that break a self-funded Nigerian student. Where an award names travel, that usually means a contribution towards getting to Canada or moving between institutions for research. Where it names research or training costs, that is money for fieldwork, equipment or conference attendance rather than for your rent.
Do not assume a fully funded label covers everything you will spend. Check whether international tuition is included, whether the stipend is paid monthly or per term, and whether you are expected to hold a teaching or research assistantship alongside the award.
Across this list, one award states a minimum degree class, one asks for a research proposal, and one asks for letters of recommendation. Those are the requirements written into the award text. Other requirements may exist on the individual pages.
Nigerian applicants should plan the paperwork early, because the slow items are not the form itself:
A minimum degree class requirement is the one to check first. If an award asks for a specific class and your result falls below it, no amount of polishing the proposal will change that, and you should move to the next entry on the list.
None of the four awards on this page carries a fixed closing date in its listing. All four are undated here, and none is marked as currently open. One entry, the KILLAM Postdoctoral Research Fellowship 2026-2027 Canada - UBC, references November 2026 in its deadline text. The McGill University Scholarships and Fellowships 2026-2027 ties its timing to admission deadlines rather than a separate fellowship deadline. The UBC Four Years Doctoral Fellowship Program (4YF) 2027 and the University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowships (UMGF) 2027 both direct you to see details.
That means the deadline you actually work to is the graduate programme's admission deadline, not a fellowship deadline. Canadian departments often review fellowship eligibility at the point of admission, so a late application to the programme closes the fellowship route with it. Two durations are named across the list: one award runs for 4 years, and one runs for 1–2 years. Confirm which applies to your level before you plan a timeline.
Canada hosted 12,072 Nigerian students in 2023, ranking third among destinations for Nigerian students, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. That figure covers students at all levels, not fellowships alone, but it tells you the community is established and the administrative path is well worn.
For fellowship applicants specifically, Canada's advantage is that research funding is often attached to the supervisor rather than to a central scholarship board. If a professor has grant money, a fellowship can be arranged around your project. That is also why so many Canadian fellowship pages are vague about nationality: the decision sits with the department.
Work through the four entries in this order. First, open the two fully funded awards and check the level tag against your own qualification. Second, read the two awards that do not state funding or eligibility, and write down the exact questions you need answered. Third, identify the graduate programme and supervisor you would apply to at each university, because the fellowship usually follows admission. Fourth, assemble transcripts, references and any research proposal well before the programme deadline, since Nigerian document processing adds weeks you cannot recover later.
If an award's eligibility page does not name your nationality and does not exclude it, that is not a rejection. It is an unanswered question, and the graduate administrator is the person who can answer it.
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*UNESCO Institute for Statistics, inbound internationally mobile students from Nigeria, 2023.
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