FG to flush out workers with fake certificates in public, private organisations

The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, has announced a commitment to rooting out individuals in public and private organizations who possess fake certificates. Mamman made this declaration in Abuja on Friday while receiving the report from an inter-ministerial investigative committee on degree certificate fraud, headed by Prof. Jubrila Amin.

On January 9, the Minister inaugurated the inter-ministerial committee to investigate allegations of degrees being obtained through fraudulent means in both local and foreign private universities. The committee was tasked with assessing the involvement of government agencies and officials in facilitating the acquisition and recognition of these fake certificates.

Expressing his disappointment with the findings of the investigation, Mamman emphasized that the Ministry would collaborate with relevant agencies to cleanse the education sector of any counterfeit practices. He acknowledged the possibility of individuals holding fake certificates in public and private organizations and stressed the need to identify and eliminate such instances. Mamman described the report as the result of a comprehensive investigation and expressed his determination to take decisive action to uphold educational standards.

Presenting the committee’s report, Chairman Jubrila Amin criticized the poor quality of education provided by certain institutions, stating that many of them were substandard. Amin emphasized the urgency of addressing the challenges at hand and recommended that all agencies in the sector digitize and automate their systems. He highlighted the importance of digitizing the entire education system to enable remote monitoring of activities in tertiary institutions.

Amin noted that the current accreditation and evaluation processes were insufficient based on the committee’s investigation. He called for the establishment of more universities in the country, particularly those capable of training PhD holders. This initiative would help reduce the reliance on foreign institutions for academic qualifications, thereby minimizing the risk of individuals obtaining fake degrees.

Amin urged the National Universities Commission (NUC) to pay closer attention to institutions offering part-time or sandwich programs to prevent a recurrence of the 2017 incident involving unaccredited courses. He emphasized the need for the Ministry to scrutinize certificates obtained from certain foreign institutions, as they had identified the genuine and counterfeit degrees. Amin concluded by empowering the Ministry to identify individuals with fraudulent certificates and take appropriate actions against them.

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