The President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in Benin Republic, Ugochukwu Favour, has appealed to the Nigerian government to reconsider its position on the suspension of the evaluation and accreditation of certificates from universities in Benin and Togo Republics.
The Nigerian government recently announced the decision following an investigative report titled: “UNDERCOVER: How DAILY NIGERIAN Reporter Bagged Cotonou Varsity Degree in Six Weeks”.
Mr Favour, who appealed to the Nigerian government for leniency, made the plea as a guest on Sunrise Daily show on Channels Television on Thursday.
He said not less than 15,000 Nigerian students who are currently studying in Benin would be affected if such a decision is taken by the government. He did not elaborate on the source of the data he relied on.
According to him, the Nigerian government shouldn’t punish all students studying in Benin Republic over what he described as the crime committed by a single institution.
He said: “As the president of the association in Benin Republic, we have constituted a committee to probe into the matter and we will make sure we bring those involved in the scandal to book and face the consequences of their actions.
“I have not validated if it has been happening for a long time. This is just what just came out on social media and we are still trying to find out how long it has been happening,” he added.
NYSC reacts
The Director of Press for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Eddy Megwa, while speaking on the television programme, said the universities in Cameroon, Togo, among others, need to go through tests to make sure that the students coming from their institutions are graduates before being enrolled into NYSC.
According to Mr Megwa, NYSC has ensured that the input of Nigeria’s National Identity Number (NIN) is also part of the registration processes “so that if a person wants to register multiple times the system will fish him or her out.”
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He said: “We also have the intention of collaborating with the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) to ensure that they are doing their job. So the process of helping the Nigerian government by way of having their passport stamped in that process will be a thing of the past.
“We are synergising with other organisations and also doing some other internal control measures so that issues like this will not happen again.”
Mr Megwa also noted that his organisation had consistently complained over the quality of graduates from both Benin and Togo Republics, and other countries.
“NYSC not a testing agency”
Mr Megwa, apart from listing the measures put in place by NYSC to checkmate corruption and fake certificates by students, however, noted that it is not the organisation’s mandate to test and verify the authenticity of graduates from higher institutions.
He said NYSC relies on the approved lists of graduands by the Senate of each university as a condition for eligibility for participation in the scheme, among other conditions.
“When we interface with these students, we have discovered that they can’t write a simple sentence, let alone speak it. The universities too need to intervene in cases like this and we also need to sanitise our process to ensure that the people we are enrolling need to be worthy,” he said.
Minister speaks
In his reaction, the Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, said on Wednesday during an interview on Channels Television’s “Politics Today show” that the government would review the operations of the various ministries and agencies responsible for recognition of accredited degrees from outside the country.
Mr Mamman said the ministry is working on its internal control mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability.
“For instance, if a particular institution or operator has been operating, say in the last 10 years, we will check if we can get records of Nigerians who attended that institution,” he said.
The minister also noted his ministry is not stopping at those two countries alone, noting that the reports at his disposal extend to many other countries.
“It extends to many countries, Western Africa, Central Africa, and all that of course. We’re not going on a voyage of discovery, but we (will) do everything possible to ensure we get the necessary information,” he said.
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