In this interview culled from Saturday PUNCH, Secretary-General of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, Prof Yakubu Ochefu, speaks to TEMITOPE ADETUNJI on the issue of fake professors in the country’s ivory towers

How did you receive the report that trended last week about the alleged presence of fake professors in Nigerian universities?

The thing is that the report was first published in 2019, so it is not a new report; it is just that it was reposted. Some people, who did not see the original report, were seeing it for the first time, and it is not a new report. It went viral because it was reposted, reaching new audiences. What happened was that in 2018, the National Universities Commission was putting together a database of professors, and the former Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof Peter Okebukola, was in charge of the process.

Some people, who were not professors, tried to find their way into that database, and when it was subjected to verification, the list that NUC got was sent to the universities for vetting. So, it was during that vetting process that some of those names you saw on the list of fake professors emerged from, 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.bu's S'Court Victory, UNIPORT Student's Murder, Other | Punch

Although the NUC denied releasing the list, do you agree that there are fake professors in Nigerian universities?

It wasn’t the NUC that released the list. Of course, the NUC denial is correct, because it was not the one that issued the statement. So, the NUC denial is in place. Yes, I agree that there are fake professors. Some individuals enter the Nigerian school system and present themselves as professors, and from time to time, we do encounter them. I have personally encountered a number of them as well.

How do they find their way into the system and get to the professorial level?

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.

Can you discuss the role of technology in detecting fraudulent credentials within the academic community?

Of course, 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.

Are there specific challenges or obstacles faced by the committee in its efforts to combat the issue of fake professors, and how are these being addressed?

Well, I think the major challenge we have is disclosure. They (vice-chancellors) are embarrassed by the fact that they allowed such individuals to come into the system before they were exposed. And they won’t want to bring it to the knowledge of the public that they had such character among them. But I can assure you that no vice-chancellor will allow someone with fake credentials to operate in their university.

What steps are being taken to educate and raise awareness among students, faculties, and other stakeholders about the consequences of academic fraud?

Oh, that happens daily. Plagiarism is treated with outright expulsion. If you plagiarise someone’s work and you are caught, you are faced with outright expulsion. It is in our instructions to staff and students that academic integrity is ranked very high in our processes.

What role does international collaboration play in addressing the issue of fake professors, and are there best practices from other countries that the committee is considering?

Interestingly, you asked that question, because when we get a credential from a university in Poland, for example, between the Polish embassy in Nigeria and the International Association of Universities or the Commonwealth Association, we run checks on people who claim that they graduated from that institution of higher learning. We also get requests from universities abroad, asking us to authenticate the existence of certain universities. We crosscheck and validate credentials. So, there is a lot of international collaboration.

Are there ongoing efforts to review and strengthen the existing policies and procedures to better safeguard the integrity of academic qualifications from Nigerian universities?

Now with the use of technology, we are using end-to-end authentication. At the entry-level, before you are admitted, your credentials are vetted by the examination body that is WAEC and NECO. We normally find students who manipulate results for admission, and when such individuals are caught, they don’t go unpunished.

What initiatives are in place to encourage whistle-blowing and reporting of suspected cases of fake professors, and how are these reports investigated?

You see the way it is structured, for coming into the system; we rely on credentials that are beyond our control. We are not the ones who set the JAMB (UTME) exams or O’ level exams that they use in qualifying to enter universities. When you come in for a programme and you have been withdrawn from the programme but you still hang around the campus, giving impressions that you are still a bona fide student, attend lectures, sit in an examination hall, and five to six years after everyone has graduated, you are still there, we refer to such people as ‘professional students’. So in the past, we used to have those kinds of people, but now that polytechnics and colleges of education are employing technology, especially for registration or course registration, it’s becoming increasingly difficult. You don’t need a whistle-blower.

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