FORGERY AND THE EDUCATION SECTOR

The authorities must do more to tackle the fraud in the system. It’s sullying the integrity of the sector  

The allegation by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) that some tertiary institutions are aiding candidates to falsify records for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) mobilisation is worrying. “The board has discovered widespread and unwholesome practices whereby some institutions were colluding with candidates to falsify vital records, such as backdated year of entry and subsequent age adjustments, to enable participation of fake candidates” in the NYSC scheme, JAMB Director of Admissions, Mohammed Bolaji, wrote in a letter to vice-chancellors, provosts and registrars of tertiary institutions in the country. With the recent decision by the federal government to set the minimum age for university admissions at 18 years, JAMB has also revealed “an alarming avalanche of obviously false affidavits and an upsurge of doctored upward age adjustments on NIN slips being submitted to upgrade recorded age.”

Given the disruption to the lives of students who are already programmed to complete secondary school by the age of 16 or 17, the unfortunate development of age falsification is driven by the reckless manner policies are driven in Nigeria. In most countries, at least three to four years would be allowed for adjustment, but this policy was to be implemented immediately before the public uproar that pushed it till next year. Even next year does not address the problem. What are the plans for those students? Should they just sit at home until they reach age 18? That perhaps explains the problem identified by JAMB, but it odes not excuse it.

Meanwhile, these reports about forgery in a sector as important as education are very damaging. Last week, the NYSC Director of Information and Public Relations, Eddy Megwa, indicted the University of Calabar for the “fraudulent” mobilisation of 99 persons and issuing letters of exemptions for two others during the 2021, 2022 and 2023 Service Years. Earlier in the year, the National Universities Commission (NUC) listed 58 illegal universities or satellite campuses operating in the country, with a warning that certificates obtained from them will not be recognised for the purposes of NYSC mobilisation, employment, and further studies. The revelation followed the suspension of degree certificates from two francophone West African countries after an undercover journalist detailed how he acquired a degree from a university in the neighbouring Benin Republic under two months, and was subsequently deployed for the NYSC scheme.

After listing the universities described as ‘Degree Mills’, the NUC Executive Secretary warned: “For the avoidance of doubt, anybody who patronises or obtains any certificate from any of these illegal institutions does so at his or her own risk.” That a thriving educational racket has been created in Nigeria is no longer in doubt. From Republic of Benin to Togo and other African countries, certificate entrepreneurs have recruited agents in Nigeria who offer admissions and award bogus degrees in what has become a very lucrative enterprise. Without travelling out of the country, people just part with money and the middlemen who engage in this sordid enterprise will confer an avalanche of degrees in any field. And, as we are now also finding out, these ‘graduates’ are easily mobilised for the NYSC programme which then confers further legitimacy on what are no more than fake credentials.  

Unfortunately, the educational sector in the country has for long been replete with unwholesome practices and the media cannot be exonerated from this national parade of shame. When politicians and business people arrange for some of these dubious certificates, they rent funny gowns with which they take photographs, and journalists immediately begin to address them by these bogus labels- ‘Professor’, ‘Doctor’, ‘Engineer,’ etc. Soon it becomes a manner of speaking, and the rest is added on. Such is the level of decay in the system that when an ordinary Nigerian walks into a hospital, chances are that the ‘doctor’ on duty may just be a glorified ward attendant. From fake pharmacists whose prescriptions are often fatal for hospital patients to fake teachers whose pupils are candidates for failure to fake journalists who write to blackmail, it is now difficult to distinguish between genuine and fake professionals in the country.

Authorities in the education sector must work with the security agencies to deal with this growing problem that puts a question mark on the integrity of academic qualifications in Nigeria.