NUC disowns viral list ‘exposing 100 fake professors’

• NUC clarified that it initiated a project in 2019 to compile and publish a comprehensive list of professors in Nigerian universities
  

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The National Universities Commission (NUC) has distanced itself from a widely circulated list alleging 100 professors in Nigeria as fake.

The list, supposedly from the NUC, surfaced last week, accusing professors from various private and public universities of being fake.

Institutions such as the University of Ibadan, University of Ilorin, Covenant University, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Lagos, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, University of Nigeria, Ahmadu Bello University, Redeemer’s University, and University of Port Harcourt were among those mentioned.

This prompted strong reactions from the affected institutions, leading to the NUC’s acting Executive Secretary, Chris Maiyaki, releasing a statement disavowing the viral list.

“They are fake, untrue, and a figment of the imagination of the authors,” the commission said.

NUC clarified that it initiated a project in 2019 to compile and publish a comprehensive list of professors in Nigerian universities.

It said it, however, found anomalies such as associate professors being listed as full professors.

The commission said it proceeded at the time to share the collated data with these institutions for authentication.

This, it said, was to have the competent authorities determine who qualifies to be referred to as a full professor.

NUC said some of the academics not captured in the 2019 exercise may now have matured and progressed to become full professors.

It said their names, in such cases, are to be included in the subsequent updates on the database.

NUC said it was this 2019 list that was recycled in 2024 and erroneously represented as a recently released list of fake professors.

“The purpose is intended to generate unnecessary controversy at an unsuitable time,” the statement reads.

The viral list comes at a time when the ministry of education is struggling to tackle concerns around admission fraud and cross-national degree racketeering.