By Kunle Akinsola

A scary news of fake professors numbering 100 discovered in the Nigerian universities has filtered in from the National Universities Commission (NUC).

The discovery followed NUC’s compilation of the names of the professors on its website which was sent to the various universities for verification.

The NUC’s Executive Secretary, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, said: “The updated version of those documents will be published by December 2019 and professors in their respective universities uploaded their CVs on the website which was used in the compilation of the directory.

“About 100 fake professors also uploaded their details but we detected them.

“This measure helped in identifying fake professors in the system.’’

Rasheed said the fight against fake professors teaching in the ivory tower should be a collective responsibility.

At the 2019 retreat for Vice-Chancellors by the NUC Strategy Advisory Committee, he said equally disturbing was the complaints from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) that some corps members’ degree certificates purportedly obtained from some prestigious universities were questionable.

He had told the vice-chancellors of a recent meeting held with the Director-General, National Youth Service Corps, Brig. Gen. Shuaibu Ibrahim, where he lodged the complaint.

Rasheed appealed to the VCs to check the excesses of their affiliated institutions and spearhead the fight against academic corruption in the universities.

The Committee has published a directory of full professors in the Nigerian university system, statistical digest of the NUS 2017-2018, refinement and modernization of instruments for accreditation of undergraduate, postgraduate, part-time, affiliate, open and distance learning programmes.

It also reflected the state of university education in Nigeria 2017- 2018.