The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC) revealed that about 100 fake professors were discovered in the university system. Academics across the country expressed their surprise by asking for concrete evidence. However, according to a Ph.D. student at the Nasarawa State University, the revelation by the NUC Secretary may be targeting the hundreds of professors parading themselves in government offices who have not conducted any research or teaching in the last 20 years.

The Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science, and Technology (CREST) at Stellenbosch University conducted a study on the quality of South Africa’s research publications, which includes predatory publishing. 4,246 South African papers published in 48 journals were found to be predatory. Several studies suggest that some academics are falling into predatory publication traps due to the pressure to publish, get more grants and boost their academic reputation.