After suspending the recognition and evaluation of diplomas in Benin and Togo, the federal government has announced that it will extend the sanctions to more countries, including Uganda, Kenya and Niger Republic.
“We are not going to stop at just Benin and Togo,” Education Minister Tahir Mamman said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday. “We are going to extend the dragnet to countries like Uganda, Kenya, even Niger here where such institutions have been set up.”
An undercover journalist had detailed how he acquired a degree from a university in Benin Republic under two months and in fact, deployed for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
The Federal Government had suspended immediately suspended accreditation of certificates from the two francophone West African nations and launched a probe which the minister said should submit its report in three months.
Mamman also said students who patronise such institutions are not victims but criminals. “I have no sympathy for such people. Instead, they are part of the criminal chain that should be arrested,” the minister said on Wednesday.
He added that security agents will go after those with fake certificates from foreign countries already using them to secure opportunities in Nigeria.