Employees in the public and commercial sectors who have false degree certificates from the Republics of Benin and Togo have been allowed to be fired by the federal government. The measures were authorised during a recent federal executive council meeting chaired by President Bola Tinubu, according to Education Minister Tahir Mamman, who made this announcement on Friday during a press conference to commemorate one year in office in Abuja.
He said the choice is in line with the suggestions made by an interministerial committee that the federal government formed to look into an undercover investigation that the Daily Nigerian published in December. According to the report, Umar Audu, an undercover reporter for DAILY NIGERIAN, received degree certificates from Ecole Superieure de Gestion et de Technologies, ESGT, Cotonou, Benin Republic, in less than two months. Despite having participated in the National Youth Service (NYSC) program lawfully over five years prior, he also utilised the certificate to enlist in the program.
“However, according to Mr. Mamman, the majority of the universities attended by Nigerian students from the two nations lack the necessary accreditation to provide degree programs. “One of the things we did throughout the year was — remember when news surfaced about some of our students travelling to neighbouring countries — some not even going at all — to obtain certificates,” stated the minister.A committee was formed by the ministry to investigate the matter. The committee produced a thorough report, which was forwarded to the federal executive council around a month ago. The council approved a few of the ministry’s recommendations.
The proposals will now be implemented in conjunction with the other impacted ministries and organisations, such as Immigration and NYSC. “Because this requires us to make some important decisions, certain employees were disciplined, and the entire unit underwent some sort of evaluation.”However, in general, we cannot have people who obtain false certificates among us to compete with our students who earned their degrees from our universities and polytechnics via hard work. For many of them, it took them four, five, six, or more years to travel outside in order to compete with those who obtained their certificates here.
According to the data that NYSC has, roughly 21,684 pupils are showing off phoney diplomas they got in the Benin Republic between 2019 and 2023, which the FEC has now approved.There are roughly 1,105 in Togo. How did that come about? All they do is go to schools, which are not accepted in those nations.Recall that this is a crucial element. In some nations, there is the actual lack of acknowledgement. They are not establishments authorised to provide degree programs in those nations.Rather, a number of our parents send their children to these establishments, and naturally, we could never acknowledge credentials that are not accepted in those nations.
“In the case of Togo, we have three universities that are officially approved and licensed to offer degrees, and in Benin, there are about five of them.
“So anyone who didn’t attend these universities is parading a fake certificate.
“And from 2017, anybody who attended a university solely run in English is wasting his time because it’s not an approved university. That is their policy.
“But a lot of our countrymen went there—some didn’t go anyway; remember, these numbers are just what we have, a lot of them didn’t even bother to go to NYSC.
“The number may be more…Some who attempted to but couldn’t succeed in the screening process disappeared into thin air.
“So in the final analysis, what the federal government approved is that the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, will issue a circular to all employers, whether public or private, to fish out anybody with a certificate from these institutions—that circular probably would have been out by now.
“And the Head of Service, has also been mandated to fish out from the public service anybody who is parading certificate from these institutions.
“So this is the decision of the federal government on this matter”.