The federal government has halted the evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates issued by the Benin Republic and Togo.
Augustina Obilor-Duru, the acting press director for the Federal Ministry of Education, confirmed this in a statement on Tuesday.
The decision was made in response to a recently published report exposing certificate racketeering in neighbouring African countries, according to the director.
A thriving certificate racketeering syndicate in neighbouring African countries such as Benin Republic and Togo, according to a report published in The Daily Nigerian, specialises in selling university degrees to eager buyers in Nigeria.
An undercover reporter obtained a university degree from Cotonou in six weeks at an “affordable rate” during the investigation.
The certificate and transcript bore the authentic scan code of Benin Republic’s Ecole Superieure de Gestion et de Technologies, ESGT.
According to the certificate, the reporter began his programme in 2018 and will graduate on September 5, 2022.
The governments of Benin Republic and Nigeria have fully accredited ESGT.
The reporter then used the forged certificate to avoid detection while participating in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.
The investigation also revealed that Nigerian racketeers are working with top management at the university campus in Cotonou, where the registrar and English section coordinators are both Nigerians.
Obilor-Duru stated that the education ministry has suspended accreditation and evaluation of university degree certificates from the affected countries pending the completion of an ongoing investigation into the matter.
