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The secretary-general of the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (AVCNU) last week urged universities to be stricter on plagiarism, especially among postgraduate students, reports the Nigerian Bulletin.

Campus politics dates back to 1925 when African students schooling in London formed a union known as the West African Students' Union (WASU), headed by a Nigerian as the first president of the union. Inflation of financial figures for projects, misappropriation of funds and bribery by school management to okay anti-students' management decisions have become the order of the day among most student union leaders.

The economic and financial crimes commission and the police have begun the prosecution of proprietors of three illegal private universities operating in the country. The proprietors of the institutions are being prosecuted for operating illegally and for collecting money illegally from innocent students.

From 1995 to 2001, Nigerian degree mills produced annually about 15 percent of total university graduates in the country. In the past 9 years, a flurry of activity has been directed at eradicating the degree mills. In 1999, the National Council on Education (NUC) directed the closure of all local and foreign satellite campuses. It also partnered with the Department of State Services (Nigeria's secret service) in locating, arresting, and prosecuting operators of unapproved universities and satellite campuses. Finally, it directed approved universities to make full disclosure of their programs, which have been listed in the Directory of Approved Programmes in the Nigerian University System.

The federal polytechnic has expelled 162 students for examination malpractice, cultism and poor academic performance, in the 2004-2005 session. The students were expelled for their involvement in examination misconduct during examinations.

The chief executive of the National Examinations Council (NECO) has authorised the council's officers to accept bribes if offered by desperate students or their parents. The measure is to save lives of NECO personnel subjected to frequent and deadly attacks by persons desperate to pass their Senior Secondary Certificate Examination by all means. In the last two years, NECO officials had been splashed with acid.