How Fake Professors Penetrate Nigerian Universities – CVC Scribe

Following the trending report of the alleged presence of fake professors in Nigerian Universities, the Secretary-General of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, Prof Yakubu Ochefu, has opened up on how the fakes were uncovered.

In an interview with The Punch, Professor Ochefu said that some people, who were not genuine professors smuggled their names into the NUC database but were exposed when the commission sent the lists to the universities for verificatio.

 “So, it was during that vetting process that some of those names you saw on the list of fake professors emerged, and it got published. If you go to the NUC website, you will see an updated version of that list that was published in 2021 containing the professors within the Nigerian university system” he said.

Revealing further how the fake professors enter into the school system to attain professorial level, he said, “Well, some of them are professional con men and women. They move around universities that are experiencing challenges in having qualified staff. And then, they parade themselves with credentials. If for example, you are the vice-chancellor of a university and you are hard-pressed for staff members, usually what happens is that on the face value of the application, you give somebody a temporary appointment subject to assessments.

“By the time you now do the proper assessments, you will realize that the person doesn’t have the qualifications that he has presented to you or that he is parading. It is at that point that we normally remove them from the system”.

On how the Committee of Vice Chancellors are addressing the matter of fake professors, he said members are usually encouraged to report if they encounter any of them. 

“These impostors tend to move from one university to another, and unsuspecting vice-chancellors become victims. 

I was a victim in one such case when I was the vice-chancellor at Kwararafa University in Wukari. A gentleman claimed to be an associate professor of Geography, stating that he was previously lecturing at the University of Maiduguri but had to move due to Boko Haram and was looking for a university with a Geography department. 

“After about three months, we discovered that he was an imposter, got him arrested, and handed him over to the police. Similarly, during my tenure as a deputy vice-chancellor at Benue State University, we encountered another imposter, who claimed to have a PhD in Computer Science. Despite presenting all certificates and documentation from the University of Benin, including a PhD, and even having a document indicating participation in the convocation, we later found out that he was fake. 

“He fled from Benue State University, resurfaced at the National Mathematical Centre, and later at Nasarawa State University, Keffi. Eventually, he was caught and sentenced to at least two to three years in prison. So, these individuals continue to infiltrate the system. When we identify any of them, we flag them on our platform, warning everyone to watch out for such individuals”, he said.

In addition Professor Ochfu said, “We have a peer review mechanism; if we find out that somebody came into the university and the person is exposed as a fake person, we circulate that information among us. That is why the committee of vice-chancellors is there in the first place; we do peer reviews; if we find someone who has been exposed as a fake professor, we post it on our platform so that people can be aware; we do the same thing for students who have been expelled for cultism, we put them on a red list so that if they want to try going to another university, their identities can be recognised and they will be flagged”.

On the role of technology in handling the issue of fake professors, he said:

“Technology is very important and it has played a huge role in detecting fraudulent academic credentials; technology is used primarily in detecting plagiarism. These days, for you to get a promotion, you must run your work through plagiarism detection software. And the result of the plagiarism software will determine if you are going to be promoted or not”.

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