The federal government has vowed to extend the suspension of degrees accreditation and evaluation to more countries including Uganda and Kenya.
The minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman stated this on Wednesday when he appeared on Channels TV programme.
It would be recalled that following an investigative report by an online newspaper, which unravelled a Cotonou-based University, which issued a degree certificate to an undercover Journalist within six weeks, Nigerian government had announced the suspension of evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from the neighbouring Benin Republic and Togo. However, speaking on the next line of action, Mammam said it will not stop at the suspension of certificates from Togo and Benin Republic alone.
“We are going to extend the dragnet. We know some countries like Uganda, Kenya and even Niger where such institutions have been set up.
“A lot of them don’t actually have physical institutions. They just operate under cover.”
The Minister further said students who patronise such institutions are not victims but criminals.
He added that security agents would go after Nigerians with fake certificates from foreign countries.
“No student or Nigerian has any business going to patronise such place. I have no sympathy for such people. Instead, they are part of a criminal chain that should be arrested,” the minister said.
“If along the line, we can trace that there are people already in the system. For instance, if a particular institution or operator has been operating, say in the last 10 years, we will check if we can get records of Nigerians who attended that institution.
“Once we do that, they are criminals and you know there is no timeframe to criminality.
“We will trace them. As long as we can lay our hands on their institutions and they are right here with us, certainly, the security agencies will go after them because they are criminals.”
The minister said certificate forgery is a global problem and not only a Nigerian one, adding that the ministry is aware of the problem.
He said according to report of a committee in 2022, eight institutions involved in fake degrees were uncovered in Nigeria.
He said some of them include European American University, Lagos; Oxford School for Continued Education, Umuahia; Imperial College of advanced studies, Kano; and Medical University of Nigeria, Kaduna.
