Since December 30, 2023, when an online medium published an investigative story of how a Nigerian journalist undercover bagged a Cotonou university degree in six (6) weeks and went ahead to participate in the one-year mandatory National Youth Service Corps programme, the issue has refused to go.

The story did not shock many Nigerians, because we have seen the height of certificate forgery and related crimes in the country. What is surprising, however, is the way the Nigerian government and its agencies are falling over themselves to sanction or probe the Cotonou university involved in the fraud.

If the truth must be told, then we must acknowledge that it is not only in Beninese and Togolese universities that certificates are sold. There are probably more people in Nigeria with bought or forged certificates than anywhere else in the world.

On November 2020, a national daily reported of statistics that emerged from screening exercises in Niger and Plateau states which were high, “so huge that one is prompted to believe there are probably more forged certificates in circulation in Nigeria than genuine ones.”

A committee that screened civil servants in Niger State had disclosed that 80 per cent of staff of the State Ministry of Education were discovered to be in service for several years with forged certificates. Chairman of the Committee, Ibrahim Panti, said 3,057 civil servants on the state’s payroll were involved in frauds ranging from falsification of credentials to outright forgery of certificates.

Within the same period, Chairman of the Plateau State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, Prof. Mathew Sule, also disclosed that the board sacked 122 primary school teachers discovered to have gained employment in the state with fake certificates.

Prior to all the above, in August 2019, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, NSCDC, paraded eight computer operators caught in Maiduguri, Borno State, for forgery of academic documents. The suspects confessed to be in the business of issuing fake university degree certificates for as low as N2,000.

The NSCDC officials said they had been on the trails of the suspects for alleged doctoring of admission letters, certificates, ID cards, tuition fee receipts, stamps and official seals of various tertiary institutions around the North-East, including the University of Maiduguri.

By December 2019, the media reported again that the National Universities Commission, NUC, discovered over 100 fake professors in Nigeria. The NUC Executive Secretary, Prof Abubakar Rasheed, was quoted as saying that the commission published the details of the fake professors on its website and also sent the names to the various universities for verification.

In the last two months, in November 2023, some staff members of the Lagos State University were also busted for similar certificate racketeering. According to the report, the certificate racketeering syndicate sold authentic Lagos State University certificates for between N2 million and N3 million to interested parties.

To be fair to them, the schools mentioned above are not the only academic institutions in Nigeria whose certain members of staff sell certificates; there are many others. Buying of certificates and related academic frauds have been in Nigeria longer than we can imagine. It is a fact that many Nigerians we see today carrying certificates, especially politicians, either bought or forged the certificates.

The Cotonou university investigative story did not only indict the Beninese university that issued the certificate, it also exposed their Nigerians collaborators. “The racketeering agents in Nigeria,” the report said, “work hand-in-hand with the top management of the university campus in Cotonou, whose registrar and English section coordinator are Nigerians”.

The report also, through the NYSC systems, showed how obsolete the computer systems in Nigeria’s public institutions have remained, despite billions of naira allocated annually in budgets to Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, for information communication technology.

Like the empty assurances the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, gave to Nigerians during the 2023 general elections, an NYSC staff had boasted about the efficiency of their integrated ICT system in using the fingerprint technology to catch those who attempt to enrol again after participating in the scheme.

It turned out that the NYSC, like most MDAs in Nigeria, lacked the digital capability to detect that the participant under cover had participated in the scheme before, even with biometric data which should have exposed him in a functioning system.

But Nigeria has been deliberately programmed by her corrupt leaders to hide such frauds. Even when the frauds come to light by accident, they are always swept under the carpet, especially when they involve a rich man or a well-connected politician.

There are two categories of Nigerians who buy or forge certificates. In one category are people who are naturally intelligent but lack the time or discipline to pass through the rigours required for obtaining a genuine or merit-based certificate; so they opt to buy or forge the certificate. The people in this category are very difficult to spot out, because they speak well or perform their jobs fairly well. For that reason, people hardly suspect them of certificate fraud.

In the second category are those who lack both the native wisdom and the ability to pass through any higher academic programme required for awarding a higher degree, and still, they go ahead to buy or forge the certificate. Those in this category are very easy to identify. They make you wonder, after interacting with them, how they got the certificates.

People with forged certificates exist in almost all organisations in Nigeria, whether private or public. It is one of the pieces of evidence that show how low our values have depreciated as a country.

We must begin to teach ourselves again what a certificate means: A written testimony from an issuing authority, stating that the holder had been taught a skill, and that he or she has learned the skill.

If we imbibe such a healthy and realistic understanding of what a certificate stands for, becoming proficient in the profession for which the certificate is issued will become our focus, and not the certificate itself. Of what use is a certificate without the corresponding skill and knowledge?

It is a sad commentary on our country that those in authority to whom we look up to sanitise the system and rid it of forged or bought certificates, are also neck-deep in the crime. Nevertheless, if men and women of integrity still remain in Nigeria, they should pick up the gauntlet, wherever they may be, and fight this evil called certificate forgery before it destroys all of us.

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