Nigeria university ban: Kenya, Uganda added to list of foreign degree crackdown
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00:00 Chinwe Osunde joins me now with more from Lagos. Chinwe, first of all, give us a sense of
00:05 the context here. Why is there this sudden mistrust of foreign qualifications?
00:11 Okay, there has been an investigation from an investigative journalist, a reporter who backed
00:18 a degree from Kotonu, that is Benin Republic, from Benin Republic University, within six weeks,
00:26 and also practice in the mandatory one year as came organized by the Nigerian Youth Service Corps.
00:33 That was the report that came out later last year, and this actually erupted or had a ripple effect,
00:43 and the Ministry of Education decided to look into this. Well, this is not the first time we are
00:48 having such a report in Nigeria, especially of fake degrees emanating from universities or from
00:55 private institutions in Benin Republic and Togo, where we have a lot of Nigerians going for school
01:04 for several reasons. It could be financial, it could be the educational, the failures or the
01:11 loopholes in the educational sector in Nigeria, which leads to them preferring to go to the
01:17 schools in the neighboring countries. So the Ministry of Education has actually decided to
01:23 look into the situation after the report emanating that a journalist went to school for six weeks,
01:29 and after which has a degree and has actually been enrolled in the NYC, that is naturally called in
01:36 Nigeria. So what exactly is the scope of this crackdown by the government on suspected fake
01:43 degrees? And is there not a risk that students from legitimate institutions end up being penalized
01:49 by these measures? It's so, it's rather unfortunate. And the government mentioned that
01:56 they're actually not going to consider these students. But yes, the Association of Nigerian
02:02 Students, which has a lot of fractions, actually appealing, some of the fractions are appealing
02:08 to the Ministry of Education to look into the matter and to consider those who have also been
02:14 advanced in their education legitimately, of course, and penalize the bad eggs in the crate of
02:22 eggs. There is no need to penalize all students when we also have a lot of good ones and just
02:28 have a few bad ones. But of course, the investigation that the Ministry of Education has to carry out
02:36 would actually reveal a lot of things. Yes, it's been a ban to the accreditation and evaluation of
02:42 the certificates. There will be a pause if the students are in school, we have a school year
02:47 that is running. So there will probably be a pause for the students who do not know the outcome
02:52 until the end of the investigation. Thereafter, the government or the Ministry of Education
02:59 might want to consider them depending on the results of the investigation.
03:04 So you're mentioning that investigation there. So besides cracking down on certain universities,
03:08 what else is the government doing to make this process of earning foreign degrees more transparent?
03:13 The Nigerian government does not have a lot of power when it comes to foreign educational system,
03:21 which obliges, but the Nigerian educational system obliges every citizen or every good citizen
03:29 to have a year of service after you have obtained your degree elsewhere. And that is where the
03:34 evaluation and accreditation comes in. So they wouldn't have a lot of power on the foreign scene,
03:41 but internally, there is a process for any school to be accredited. And there are some requirements.
03:49 And even if when a student has to get into a school, there are cut off marks, there's a process,
03:54 due diligence that is always done before a school is accredited and before a student actually gains
04:00 admission into a school, which is a normal thing. Yes, which is a normal thing in every country.
04:07 So I believe that the Nigerian government is doing the right thing when it comes to
04:14 checking the process that it has laid on ground and to checkmate the ones that are
04:18 coming in from foreign countries. Thanks very much. Chinmoy Osundu there,
04:22 speaking to us from Lagos.