About four years ago, a “university” in “Ghana” wrote to me announcing its decision to award me with an honourary doctorate degree for my “contribution to humanity and service to the nation”. My heart skipped a beat.

Which service and what contribution? I asked myself. The “university” also told me that I don’t need to attend the convocation in Ghana as they can arrange for me to receive it in Nigeria.

Is it free? NO. It comes for a fee. Thank God I hadn’t the money they wanted me to give for the “award”. And again, I was (and still am) not crazy about cheap titles. I rejected the offer outright – without even giving the “university” the honor of a reply.

But aren’t all honourary doctorate degrees “fake”? Sometimes even prestigious universities give honorary degrees to rich and influential persons in order to get return for their investment, sorry investiture. I learned on good authority that my alma mater, a university that always prides itself on integrity, once chose a superrich US-based Nigerian for an honourary degree in order to make him donate to the university. It is even rampant in other Nigerian universities.

Recently, the new chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Babatunde Fowler’s honourary doctorate degree causes stir on social media, with commentators giving viewpoints of different shades. While I can’t explain why people flaunt an honorary degree title, even from a serious institution, I also don’t understand why people haggle over a nugatory aspect of a person’s entire record. And his is a radiant record.

Should acceptance of an honourary degree from a fake university overshadow one’s entire service records built for nearly 40 years? It may be possible that Fowler was swindled by the fake university. Remember, at times a fake currency is palmed on unsuspecting person and spent without knowledge.

But one of the features that distinguished Lagos State from other states across the federation is the state’s huge internally-generated revenue profile that skyrocketed from about N3 billion to over N20 billion in the last decade. While the credit for this achievement is mainly given to those at the foreground, particularly governors under whom the achievement is attained, the unsung hero remains in the background making a silent revolution.

The man at the centre of storm, Babatunde Fowler, is he who ballooned the Lagos State’s revenue profile from a shrinking N3 billion to a soaring N20.5 billion every month. The same man grew the branches of Commercial Bank (Credit Lyonnais Nigeria Limited) from two to 11 in five years as the Head of Branch Network of the bank in the 80’s.

Under Fowler, Lagos became the only state in Nigeria that financially stood on its feet by generating more revenue than the monthly allocation it received from the Federation Account.

President Buhari, like most Nigerians, might have fallen for this record — not Fowlers’ honourary or academic “Dr”.

The question here is: why will Nigerians overlook the whole contents of the man’s CV and go after the word “Dr”?

•Jaafar Jaafar writes from Kano. This is an excerpt of an article entitled ‘Buhari’s fault, Fowler’s foul’ originally published on his Facebook wall yesterday. Jaafar can be reached via jafsmod@yahoo.com. Photo shows FIRS Chairman, Babatunde Fowler.

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