Acting Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC) Chris Maiyaki, has denied the report that the Commission discovered over 100 fake professors in Nigerian Universities.
He said: “The NUC wishes to deny these media reports categorically and unequivocally. They are fake, untrue and a figment of the imagination of the author(s), all happening at an unsuitable time, when the nation is awaiting the outcome of the investigation into the fake certificate saga from universities in some neighbouring countries.”
Maiyaki in a statement issued on Monday said the Commission found the development as unfair to all stakeholders.
“Specifically, the fake news items have been circulating in two forms – (i) as a link to a 2019 online news item; and (ii) as a separate list of names of the alleged fake Professors in various Nigerian Universities, which was not the case.
“We consider these unfounded publications as ill-conceived and a ploy by unscrupulous persons to create in plausible a tone, disquiet, panic and provoking outcries at both the national and international levels,” he said.
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While noting that the Commission in 2019 initiated a laudable project, with the intent of compiling and publishing a list of full professors in the Nigerian universities System (NUS) through the use of an online portal to collate the requisite data, he said, during the exercise, the NUC found anomalies, such as associate professors being listed as full Professors.
“It is essential to also state clearly that the Commission as a responsible Federal Government agency, does not engage in half-baked exercises capable of tarnishing the image of Nigeria and the NUS. That was why the Commission deemed it necessary to share the collated data with the Nigerian Universities for the purpose of authentication by the competent authourities as to who qualifies to be a full professor,” he said.
He however noted that based on the verified data, the Commission then in a landmark accomplishment, first published the list of full professors who participated in the exercise in 2019.
The NUC boss said that this would be succeeded by a continuous process of updating the list of full professors.
“It is important to state at this point that all the issues pertaining to the 2019 verification of full professors in Nigerian Universities were concluded in 2019.”
He said since then, the Commission had entrenched a more reliable system of generating the list of full professors in the NUS.
“The Commission is also conscious of the fact that some of the academics not captured in the 2019 exercise may now have matured and progressed to become full Professors; this being the reason why it continuously updates the list of full professors in the NUS,” he added.
Maiyaki questioned the rationale behind resurrecting stale 2019 news, saying it was clearly intended to generate unnecessary controversy at an unsuitable time, whilst lacing it with a false list of fake professors.
The NUC boss, however, asked government officials at all levels, members of the NUS, the international community, and the public, to disregard the items of fake and stale news which have long been laid to rest in 2019.
