On Cotonou certificates

I write on the recent information released from the Ministry of Education that all degree certificates obtained from Cotonou and Togo universities issued from 2017 to date will be rendered invalid. The decision taken by the FG is quite decisive and could help in avoiding recruiting incompetent hands.

I support the committee’s recommendation, which after reviewing the situation, said “We can’t have in our midst people who procure fake certificates and do compete with our students who graduated from our universities and polytechnics through their sweat; some spent four, five, six, or more years going out to compete with people who procure certificates right there without going anywhere, for a lot of them.”

It’s certainly not fair to obtain a Cotonou-Togo degree certificate within six months and get employed just because they are sons and daughters of first-class citizens, leaving those who spent four to seven years in their country holding the certificate with no job.

But how could this development transpire if the FG had done what had to be done? How could such a consequence of obtaining a Cotonou-Togo degree certificate be prevalent if the government had paid serious attention to matters concerning education?

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Despite being the weapon of change in society, in Nigeria, education seems to be handled somehow. We shouldn’t go like that. It’s time we pay more attention to education so as to protect the dignity of our universities and the students who graduate from them. 

I suggest the federal government gives a four-year ultimatum for those who got employed with the certificate to go and obtain genuine degrees here in Nigeria and bring them to their various places of work instead of terminating their appointments, thereby adding to the huge number of jobless youths in the country.

For those who have yet to start work, they shouldn’t be employed with the Cotonou-Togo degree certificates, unless they go to genuine universities and obtain genuine degrees.

Mallam Musbahu Magayaki, Sabon Fegi, Azare

Musbahumuhammad258@gmail.com