NUC Disowns ‘100 Fake Professors’ Report

National Universities Commission (NUC) has denied authoring a trending online report that it had uncovered a total of 100 fake professors in some Nigerian universities.

The commission stated this in a statement released yesterday by its acting executive secretary, Chris Maiyaki.

He said though the commission initiated a verification process in 2019 for academics in Nigerian universities, it did not release a list of fake professors in 2024.

Maiyaki said, “For the avoidance of doubt, the commission can confirm that it initiated in 2019 a laudable project, with the intent of compiling and publishing a list of full professors in the Nigerian Universities System (NUS) through the use of an online portal to collate the requisite data. During the exercise, the NUC found anomalies, such as associate professors being listed as full professors.

“It is essential to also state clearly that the commission as a responsible federal government agency, does not engage in half-baked exercises capable of tarnishing the image of Nigeria and the NUC.

“That was why the commission deemed it necessary to share the collated data with the Nigerian universities for authentication by the competent authorities as to who qualifies to be a full professor,” NUC said.