The recent revelations of widespread certificate racketeering involving institutions in Benin Republic, Togo and other countries should serve as a wake-up call to the Nigerian government.
This scandal exposes gaping loopholes in our education system and institutional failures that have allowed fake degrees to proliferate.
In the wake of the development, the federal government banned the validation of degree certificates from the two francophone West African nations and launched a probe which the minister said should submit its report in three months.
The ban was extended to countries like Uganda, Kenya, and even Niger where such institutions have been set up pending the outcome of an investigation involving the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education of Nigeria and the two countries as well the Department of State Services, DSS and the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC.
The federal government had taken further steps in banning 18 foreign universities operating in Nigeria, describing them as “degree mills,” warning Nigerians to avoid enrolling in such institutions.
The directive affected five universities from the United States, six from the United Kingdom, and three Ghanaian tertiary institutions.
As a newspaper, we believe it is our duty to speak truth to power and demand accountability from officials entrusted to safeguard the integrity of our education sector.
The ease with which degrees can be purchased from dubious foreign institutions is an indictment on relevant agencies like the National Universities Commission, NYSC, Immigration and Foreign Affairs Ministry.
In our view, their negligence has undermined the value of university education in Nigeria.
While the government bans and blacklists these degree mills, it treats a symptom not the disease.
The incentives driving degree racketeering remain – a broken university system that cannot meet demand. Every year thousands of qualified students are denied admission due to a lack of space.
Unscrupulous elements exploit this shortage by selling degrees to the desperate. Until access to quality education expands, the racket will continue.
While we acknowledge that certificate racketeering is not peculiar to Nigeria alone as it is a global problem, the scope of this present saga is mind-blowing.
And more worrisome is the fact that certificate racketeering has become embedded in the system that has defied solution as alluded to by the undercover reporter of having done similar investigation in the past in 2018, which, although led to the federal government taking certain decisions, but, obviously, they were not enough to curb it.
Our concern is that a lot of investigations, committees and probe panels the government has set up on various vexatious issues in the past only end up on the shelf and do not see the light of day, and this could be one of such.
Though we applaud the federal government over the suspension of the evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates obtained from these institutions, it should step up efforts to probe the matter and punish those involved in the saga.
This newspaper hopes the federal government will work the talk this time by making the investigations public and bring to book those found culpable once the investigation is concluded.
The government should also beam its searchlight into the activities of tertiary institutions, especially privately owned ones who are swindling innocent young Nigerians of their money by offering them unaccredited courses.
For us, a matter of this grave importance shouldn’t be swept under the carpet while the country moves on as if nothing has happened because it is the responsibility of the government to protect employers who by chance may end up employing people who do not have the skills that they ascribe to themselves through those certificates.
As a newspaper and mindful of the negative impact of the activities of certificate racketeering and its effect on the education system and by extension, the country, we are resolute that exposing, naming, and shaming top officials of relevant federal agencies involved is the most credible starting point.
This is because the certificate syndicates would not have succeeded without internal conspiracy from relevant ministries including the Ministry of Education.
As citizens, we have a duty too. Report any suspicions, advocate for reforms and value integrity. With vigilance, we can clean up education.
Furthermore, Nigeria’s degree scandals indicate systemic flaws in regulation and access. But it also presents an opportunity to reinvent our institutions. We need the political will to confront the causes, not just the symptoms. Our progress as a nation depends on education. We must redeem its sanctity and virtue.
To this end, having the full complements of the right tertiary institutions and certificates are right steps towards repositioning Nigeria’s education sector.
