THE Federal Government, through the Ministry of Education, said it has discovered that 22, 500 Nigerians are parading fake certificates obtained from Benin Republic and Togo between 2019 and 2023.
The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, disclosed this on Friday, August 23, at a press conference in Abuja, to mark his first anniversary in office as minister.
The minister revealed that between 2019 and 2023, 21,600 Nigerians obtained fake certificates from unaccredited universities in the Benin Republic, while another 1,105 got theirs from unaccredited universities in Togo.
He disclosed that his ministry sourced this information from records of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and other agencies.
He further stated that the figure was likely higher than what they had already discovered, as some individuals chose not to participate in the mandatory NYSC scheme and other engagements, which would have enabled them to collect more data.
He remarked that individuals with fake certificates had used them to secure jobs in government and private organizations, falsely claiming to have studied abroad, while hardworking graduates were still searching for employment opportunities.
“Even within the countries, Benin and Togo, these universities are not accredited to offer degree programmes. I don’t know how Nigerians chose to go to unaccredited institutions abroad to ‘study’.
“Our investigations also indicated that many of the people never even attended the school physically,” he stated.
Tahir revealed that a circular is being drafted by the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation to facilitate the identification and prosecution of individuals holding fake certificates.
Tahir encouraged private sector operators to conduct thorough investigations into their employees who claimed to hold foreign certificates and to identify and hand over to the Federal Ministry of Education for prosecution any staff members found to be holding certificates obtained from these countries between 2019 and 2023.
The minister specified that graduates from only eight accredited universities – five in Benin and three in Togo – would be spared from the consequences, while also revealing that the government’s initiatives, primarily driven by the National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-school Children, have successfully returned around four million previously out-of-school children to the classroom.
“Our target is the see about 3 to 4 million children leave the streets and return the school annually, and if that is successfully achieved, then by the end of the administration, significant achievements would have been made as regards the out-of-school children,” he stated.
The ICIR reports that in January 2024, the federal government suspended the accreditation and evaluation of degree certificates from the Benin Republic and Togo.
The suspension followed a report by an online newspaper, Daily Nigerian, which exposed how a Cotonou-based university issued a degree certificate to an undercover journalist within six weeks.
The online newspaper revealed how beneficiaries of these substandard certificates compete for jobs and other opportunities with hard-working graduates who undergo academic rigours for at least four years to obtain their degrees.
It also reported that the requirements for the fake degree are O-level certificates – fake or genuine – and money, which vary depending on the course, urgency, and class of degree.
A reporter with the ICIR
A Journalist with a niche for quality and a promoter of good governance