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A recent report highlights risks of investment of funds into the UK education sector by African elites, including “politically exposed persons”, some of whom have been convicted of corruption or whose assets have been seized by the UK. According to the report, the gap between what west African PEPs pay for a UK education and what they can legitimately afford is a significant red flag. Relatively lax anti-money laundering rules in the British education sector mean that school administrators and admissions staff are potentially complicit in illegal flows of money.

The quality of university education in Nigeria declines because politicians refuse to pay adequate attention to education. According to the president of the Academic Staff Union, most universities are “caricatures”, any person can teach and to be academic you only need some temperament. No serious academic work can be done and universities “produce ill-equipped graduates and they go to one political heavyweight, who gives them a letter and they are employed as teachers in the universities”.

Tales of corruption in Nigeria are many in number. One example is the case of the clerk at the state examinations board who was called to account for the disappearance of $100,000 in exam fees. An analyst of the country says: "There's this perception among officials in Nigeria that national government is there to divide up the booty of oil wealth." That political culture then filters through to layers below, to the point where even local police or school teachers or receptionists at public hospitals may consider it their right to demand bribes. "It's about people monetizing their position in society so that even people with the lowest amount of authority will use that to extract a small amount."