The Nigerian Government has dismissed several civil servants who obtained their degrees from private tertiary institutions in Benin Republic and Togo, following a directive that affects workers who graduated from these institutions between 2017 and the present.
The Director of Information and Public Relations in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Segun Imohiosen, confirmed the development on Wednesday.
The move is part of the government’s ongoing effort to address the proliferation of fake degree certificates and degree mills, particularly from institutions in neighboring Francophone countries.
In August 2023, the Nigerian Government had already restricted degree accreditation from certain universities in Benin Republic and Togo. The decision came after a Daily Nigerian investigation revealed how an individual obtained a degree from a university in Benin Republic within two months and used it to participate in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) program. This raised concerns about the integrity of degree certification from these countries.
Following the investigation, the government banned the accreditation of degrees from these institutions and set up an Inter-Ministerial Investigative Committee to probe degree certificate racketeering. Former Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, disclosed that over 22,500 Nigerians had obtained fraudulent degrees from these institutions, and their certificates were set to be revoked.
Mamman emphasized that this action was necessary to protect the country’s image, as many Nigerians had obtained these degrees through unscrupulous means, often without even leaving Nigeria. He also urged the private sector to follow the government’s lead in rejecting such certificates.
Although the exact number of affected civil servants remains unclear, sources indicated that the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (Cabinet Affairs) issued a memo to all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to enforce the directive. The memo instructed these bodies to identify and terminate the appointments of employees who graduated from unaccredited universities in Benin Republic and Togo.
The NYSC confirmed that it had already begun implementing the directive, with five staff members dismissed for holding degrees from the disputed institutions.
