From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The National Universities Commission (NUC) has denied media reports that indicated that it recently uncovered 100 fake Professors in Nigerian University System (NUS).
NUC Acting Executive Secretary Chris Maiyaki, in a statement on Monday, said the list of 100 fake professors never emanated from the Commission neither did the Commission issue a statement in that regard, hence Nigerians and the university community should ignore the media report.
He, however, explained that the NUC, in 2019, initiated a project with the intent of compiling and publishing a list of full Professors in the Nigerian Universities System (NUS) through the use of an online portal to collate the requisite data.
He confirmed that during the exercise, the NUC found anomalies such as Associate Professors being listed as full Professors. “It is essential to also state clearly that the Commission as a responsible Federal Government Agency, does not engage in half-baked exercises capable of tarnishing the image of Nigeria and the NUS.
“That was why the Commission deemed it necessary to share the collated data with the Nigerian Universities for the purpose of authentication by the competent authorities as to who qualifies to be a full professor.
“Based on the verified data, the Commission then in a landmark accomplishment, first published the list of full Professors who participated in the exercise in 2019. It was understood that this would be succeeded by a continuous process of updating the list of full Professors.
“It is important to state at this point that all the issues pertaining to the 2019 verification of full Professors in Nigerian Universities were concluded in 2019. Since then, the Commission entrenched a more reliable system of generating the list of full Professors in the NUS.
“The Commission is also conscious of the fact that some of the academics not captured in the 2019 exercise may now have matured and progressed to become full Professors. This being the reason why it continuously updates the list of full Professors in the NUS.”
He, however, questioned the rationale behind recycling the stale 2019 news of an activity it initiated, conducted and laid to rest in the same year. “There’s indications that the purpose and objective of resurrecting in 2024 (more than 4 years later) this-no-longer-fresh news, was clearly to generate unnecessary controversy at an unsuitable time, whilst lacing it with a false list of fake Professors,” he added.
He appealed to Government officials at all levels, members of the NUS, the international community, and the public, to please disregard the items of fake and stale news which have long been laid to rest in 2019.