Why Does the Government Never Know What All Nigerians Know? By Jibrin Ibrahim

The big story this week is that the Nigerian government has suspended the evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from universities in neighbouring Benin and Togo.

The announcement comes a few days after an undercover report by Daily Nigerian exposed certificate racketeering from a university in Benin. The suspension, according to the ministry, stands pending the outcome of an investigation involving the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education of Nigeria and the two countries as well as the State Security Service (SSS) and the NYSC.

It is interesting that the government is the last to find out that for decades, so many Nigerians have been obtaining their certificates from so-called degree mills institutions, i.e. institutions that exist on paper or operate in clandestine manner outside the control of regulators within and outside the country. Has the National Universities Commission (NUC) not been publishing lists and warning Nigerians to avoid patronising such institutions in Nigeria. With the emergence of some scrutiny, has there not been an escalation of the establishment of such institutions in Togo, Benin, Ghana and Niger Republics to escape control measures by Nigeria? Has the National Youth Service Scheme not responded to the geometric expansion of fake degree certificates by establishing special verification procedures through the Ministry of Education to identify fake certificates and draw up a comprehensive list of fake universities? Why is the Ministry of Education suddenly pretending that it is just discovering the scam and is taking immediate action? The truth, my friends, is that when such scams come to the notice of the government, officials look for ways of benefiting from the scam rather than exposing and dealing with the criminality. The Minister should ask his own Ministerial Committee how come they have a special verification procedure and a list of fake universities and the same people have now advised him to set up a committee to travel around West Africa to investigate a problem they have vast information on and many of them are beneficiaries of.

I am particularly irritated by the idea that such illegal institutions located abroad or at home are preying on unsuspecting, innocent Nigerians and some desperate Nigerians who patronize them. Everybody knows how long it takes to get a legitimate degree. People who pay for degrees which they get in weeks and the period is then backdated so that they can pretend they had been studying for years know they are criminals consciously defrauding the government and the people.

I thank the Daily Nigerian reporter who obtained a degree certificate in Mass Communication from ESGT, a Benin university in Cotonou, established in 2009. The reporter obtained the degree in six weeks without attending any classes or writing an examination. He also applied for and was registered to participate in the one-year mandatory NYSC scheme with the certificate despite undergoing the NYSC some years ago. It is interesting that the NYSC claims that there is no way its biometric checks could be manipulated to allow the same person to undergo service twice, but all the reporter had to do was to change his phone number and email address used during his service year to get accepted. This fully exposed the Nation to the depth of the criminality forcing the government to act.

Nigeria has so many institutions with the mandate to investigate and prosecute such criminality and it is interesting that they have raised no campaign on the issue or made any prosecution. We should not be surprised. The publisher of Daily Nigerian online newspaper, Mallam Jaafar Jaafar, has accused the Department of State Security (DSS) Boss, Mr. Yusuf Bichi, of employing over 100 people from his hometown with degree certificates from Benin and Togo. Mr. Jaafar wrote on X that:

“The problem is that the DG of @OfficialDSSNG Magaji Bichi has employed over 100 Cotonou and Togo “graduates” from his hometown. Insiders said the service lowered its recruitment bar, set aside its strict, multi-level recruitment tradition to inject quacks into the once prestigious service. I hope DSS will not delegate officers with Tokumbo degrees to represent the service in investigating this academic fraud.” He added that these quack graduates are also employed in choice government MDAs such as CBN (yes, CBN), FIRS, National Assembly Service Commission, NDIC, name it!

The basic truth is that the Nigerian State, its agencies and operatives no longer work in conformity with our Constitution and laws. Most public servants are buccaneers raiding government institutions and citizens in their logic of primitive accumulation of capital. Rules and regulations are used as hurdles to engage in racketeering of citizens who seek access for services. When they discover you have a fake degree from such countries, it’s an opportunity for them to demand huge bribes to get you into the system. If you have a genuine degree from the said countries, and they do have many genuine universities, they use the excuse of suspecting your degree to be fake and refuse to accept it until you bribe them. When the organisers of recruitment of those with fake degrees are top government officials, then official power is abused to put them through.

The other big issue in the news currently comes from EFCC which announced a N37 billion fraud in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs allegedly laundered during the tenure of former minister, Sadiya Umar-Farouk. Details of the ongoing probe made available by the EFCC revealed that the money was transferred from the Federal Government’s accounts to 38 different bank accounts domiciled in five legacy commercial banks belonging to or connected with a certain contractor. The suspect transferred N6,746,034,000.00 to Bureau De Change Operators, N540,000,000.00 withdrawn in cash, N288,348,600.00 used to purchase cars, and used N2,195,115,000.00 to purchase choice properties within Abuja and Enugu State,” said the EFCC.

There was virtually no media organ in Nigeria that did not cry out against massive fraud in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs under the leadership of former minister Sadiya Umar-Farouk, under the President Buhari administration. One evidence everyone cited was that the trillions allegedly used to feed school children, especially during COVID-19 pandemic. It was obvious fraud because the children were not in school and there was no evidence of children receiving support at home and yet government pretended the money was used for the purpose for which it was allocated. President Buhari ran the most corrupt administration in the history of Nigeria but pretended that there was no corruption. Yes, the government pretends it does not know about wrong doings because the current purpose of government is to benefit from and through criminal behaviour.