In the media

The Nigerian National Universities Commission (NUC) has banned the awarding of honorary degrees to serving public officials. This decision was taken after an investigation found that honorary degrees are being used as a way to fraudulently gain the title ‘Dr’. The head of NUC warned that misuse of honorary titles undermines the integrity of universities and diminishes public trust in genuine academic qualifications. The report identified 32 Nigerian institutions operating as honorary degree mills.

Nigeria’s Senate has approved the “Sexual Harassment of Students” Bill that could impose imprisonment of up to 14 years for academic staff in higher education who sexually harass students. In a context where sex-for-grades scandals have long caused concern, this law protects students while holding academic institutions accountable. It also requires institutions to establish an Independent Sexual Harassment Prohibition Committee with investigative powers to bolster accountability.

The Ondo State Government praised the Federal Government’s launch of the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD), calling it a landmark reform against certificate racketeering and academic fraud. NERD digitizes Nigeria’s academic output and standardized credential verification. It also introduces the National Publication Index to enhance academic integrity, and indigenous knowledge governance.

Nigeria’s federal government has introduced reforms to enhance integrity in higher education recruitment and leadership appointments. New policies, such as publicly advertising vacancies, aim to promote transparency and equity. A recent report revealed that over 1,800 of more than 3,000 staff at the University of Lagos resigned within five years. The updated criteria also prevent acting heads from influencing selection processes, ensuring fairer outcomes and minimizing political interference.

Nigeria's higher education sector is concerned about the commercialization of honorary degrees, with titles being awarded to undeserving individuals. Despite the Keffi Declaration's guidelines, the unethical practice persists, prompting the President’s condemnation. Educators stress the importance of merit over monetary contributions and urge adherence to the Declaration's guidelines to restore integrity to the process.

Following a report exposing the widespread issue of fake degrees in Nigeria's academic institutions, the government has established an inter-ministerial committee to investigate this matter. 107 local private universities that have operated in the past 15 years will be scrutinized. A journalist revealed that a Bachelor's degree can be obtained in six weeks without attending classes.

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) sanctioned 13 Secondary Schools in Gombe State over cases of examination malpractice. From 2018 to 2020, seven public secondary schools were found to be involved in exam malpractice. In 2022, the Ministry received a fresh set of six schools that committed the same offence, and they were also de-recognised with a penalty of N500,000 per school payable to WAEC. According to WAEC director, the threat of examination malpractice had a negative impact on students' performance in the Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations result: with an overall average of 55.6% in 2022 compared to 79.5 per cent in 2021.

Academic dishonesty including dissertation fraud is on rise universities in Africa. Only 24 African countries out of 54 have institutional repositories. This means that dissertations and other sources of information that can be plagiarised only exist in hard copies. According to a professor from Uganda, one way to eliminate contract writing is to establish a rigorous process throughout the dissertation writing and defence process. The president of the Southern African Students Union believes that paying lecturers decent salaries will lead to a decrease in the number of people engaging in ghost-writing for students.

Not only have Nigerian students been cheating from each other for years, but also the plagiarised academic work hasn’t been included in any global database. In a report, Nigeria's Vice-President announced the new EagleScan anti-plagiarism software would improve the quality of research, teaching and learning in Nigeria and West Africa. He promised that the government would ensure that anti-plagiarism measures were fully implemented in the country's institutions.

Nigeria’s National Universities Commission (NUC) had discovered fake institutions in Benin awarding PhD degrees after students completed bogus studies in less than one year. According to NUC, academic projects and theses were sold for about NGN3,000 (about US$7.32) per copy, and sexual harassment was prevalent. Many of these fraudulent institutions are run by Nigerian proprietors who target students from Nigeria, where public universities struggle to accommodate a high number of qualified students seeking admission.