In a swift response to the 6 weeks acquisition of a university degree in Cotonou, Benin Republic by a Daily Nigeria reporter, Umar Audu who went undercover and investigated the booming business fake degrees, the Federal Government has banned 18 foreign universities operating in Nigeria, describing them as “degree mills,’’ warning Nigerians to avoid enrolling in such institutions.

The directive affected five universities from the United States, six from the United Kingdom, and three Ghanaian tertiary institutions.

Also, the Federal Ministry of Education on Tuesday announced the temporary suspension of evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from the Republic of Benin and Togo.

Announcing the ban in a statement published on its website, the National Universities Commission explained that the federal government had not licensed the affected universities and they had been closed down.

It stated, “The National Universities Commission wishes to announce to the general public, especially parents and prospective undergraduates that the under-listed “degree mills” have not been licensed by the Federal Government and have therefore been closed down for violating the Education (National Minimum Standards, etc.) Act of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.

The affected schools are the University of Applied Sciences & Management, Port Novo, Republic of Benin, or any of its other campuses in Nigeria; Volta University College, Ho, Volta Region, Ghana, or any of its other campuses in Nigeria; the International University, Missouri, USA, Kano, and Lagos Study Centres, or any of its campuses in Nigeria and the Collumbus University, United Kingdom operating anywhere in Nigeria.

The list also included Tiu International University, UK; Pebbles University, UK, operating anywhere in Nigeria; London External Studies UK operating anywhere in Nigeria; Pilgrims University operating anywhere in Nigeria; West African Christian University operating anywhere in Nigeria; EC-Council University, USA, Ikeja, Lagos Study Centre and Concept College/Universities (London) Ilorin or any of its campuses in Nigeria.

Others are Houdegbe North American University campuses in Nigeria; Irish University Business School London, operating anywhere in Nigeria; University of Education, Winneba Ghana, operating anywhere in Nigeria; Cape Coast University, Ghana, operating anywhere in Nigeria; African University Cooperative Development, Cotonou, Benin Republic, operating anywhere in Nigeria; Pacific Western University, Denver, Colorado, Owerri Study Centre and Evangel University of America & Chudick Management Academic, Lagos.

In a move to sanitise the education sector, the Ministry of Education said it was temporarily suspending the evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from the Republic of Benin and Togo.

Audu, who reached out to the syndicate that specialises in selling degree certificates in December 2022, graduated in February 2023 and was issued a Bachelor of Science in Mass Communication certificate from the Ecole Superieure de Gestion et de Technologies, Cotonou, Benin Republic.

All these he achieved without setting a foot into the school or writing any examination.

In reaction, the Federal Ministry of Education, in a statement on Tuesday, decried the certificate racketeering exposed by the report and berated Nigerians who engaged in desperate methods to get a degree.

According to the statement by Augustina Obilor-Duru on behalf of the Director of Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of Education, the suspension of the evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from the Republic of Benin and Togo would subsist pending the outcome of an investigation involving the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education of Nigeria, the two countries as well as the Department of State Security Services and the National Youths Service Corps.

The statement read, “The Federal Ministry of Education vehemently decries such acts and with effect from 2nd January 2024 is suspending evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from Benin and Togo Republics pending the outcome of an investigation that would involve the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria and the two countries, the ministries responsible for Education in the two countries as well the Department of State Security Services and the National Youths Service Corps.

“The ministry, therefore, wishes to call on the general public to support its efforts, show understanding, and provide useful information that will assist the Committee in finding lasting solutions to prevent further occurrence.

“The ministry has also commenced internal administrative processes to determine the culpability or otherwise of her staff for which applicable Public Service Rules would be applied.’’

The ministry further noted that the issue of institutions that exist on paper or operate clandestinely outside the control of regulators is a global problem that all countries grapple with.

“The FME has been contending with the problem, including illegal institutions located abroad or at home preying on unsuspecting, innocent Nigerians and some desperate Nigerians who deliberately patronize such outlets.

“Periodically, warnings have been issued by the ministry and NUC against the resort to such institutions and, in some instances, reports made to security agencies to clamp down on the perpetrators. The ministry will continue to review its strategy to plug any loopholes, processes, and procedures and deal decisively with any conniving officials,” it stated. The PUNCH reports that in 2020, the NYSC said it would commence the prosecution of Nigerian graduates with fake credentials, especially from West African countries.

A former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed also in 2020 noted that certain Nigerians were purchasing fake degrees from degree mills in and out of Nigeria.

In September 2023, a newspaper exposed a certain London Graduate School selling fake honorary degrees to Nigerians.

Commenting on the development, the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Prof. Gbolahan Bolarin called for the establishment of a board to accredit foreign degrees in Nigeria.

The Professor of Mathematics also blamed the high number of fake degrees from degree mills in West African countries on the quest by Nigerians willing to cut corners in their quests to obtain degree certificates.

Speaking in an interview with our correspondent, Gbolahan, said, “I think the quest for a fast way to obtaining degrees is the main motive behind this. Nigerians, especially the youths, are becoming extremely impatient, and they would look for all means to cut corners.

The Punch

A Kwara state based legal practitioner, Muhammed Adams, also known as Foundational Nupe Lawyer has announced his upcoming quest to have the Matrimonial Causes Act amended to recognise polygamy.

Adams made the disclose via his X handle.

“I am currently working on a Bill to amend the Marriage Act, Matrimonial Causes Act and Marriage (Validation) Act.

“These laws are not only archaic but do not take into account the realities of marriages, divorces and custody of children in Nigeria.

“In the Bill I will also be making a strong case for polygamy as a form of marriage in Nigeria which should be recognized under these Acts. But I need a strong Member of the National Assembly to champion this advocacy. I am open to suggestions”

By Aaron Sibarium

Harvard University president Claudine Gay was hit with six additional allegations of plagiarism on Monday in a complaint filed with the university, breathing fresh life into a scandal that has embroiled her nascent presidency and pushing the total number of allegations near 50.

Seven of Gay’s 17 published works have already been impacted by the scandal, but the new charges, which have not been previously reported, extend into an eighth: In a 2001 article, Gay lifts nearly half a page of material verbatim from another scholar, David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.

That article, “The Effect of Minority Districts and Minority Representation on Political Participation in California,” includes some of the most extreme and clear-cut cases of plagiarism yet. At one point, Gay borrows four sentences from Canon’s 1999 book, Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts, without quotation marks and with only minor semantic tweaks. She does not cite Canon anywhere in or near the passage, though he does appear in the bibliography.

Beyond that, Gay’s first two footnotes are copied verbatim from Canon’s endnotes.

Canon, like several of the scholars Gay has quoted without attribution, insisted that she had done nothing wrong.

“I am not at all concerned about the passages,” Canon told the Washington Free Beacon. “This isn’t even close to an example of academic plagiarism.”

Though Harvard’s governing board, the Harvard Corporation, said in mid-December that it had reviewed Gay’s published oeuvre and found several cases of “inadequate citation,” it did not identify any of the examples described in the new complaint, which was submitted to the school’s research integrity officer, Stacey Springs, and obtained by the Free Beacon.

The discrepancy raises troubling questions not just about the scope of Gay’s plagiarism, which appears to afflict half of her published works, but also the thoroughness and seriousness of the Corporation’s probe, which the board described as “an independent review by distinguished political scientists.”

The review was completed in just a few weeks—far less time than the 6 to 12 months typical of other plagiarism investigations—and the Corporation has refused to disclose the names of the academics who conducted it. A Harvard spokesman, Jonathan Swain, did not respond to a request for comment about whether the school has reviewed all of Gay’s work, and, if so, how it missed the examples unearthed on Monday.

“The board’s review of Gay’s work was too brief to inspire confidence,” the complaint reads. “So we now know for certain that the board’s investigation was a sham.”

The allegations filed Monday also include more material from Gay’s dissertation, which has already received three corrections. In one of the new examples, Gay, who works in quantitative political science, lifts a full sentence from her thesis adviser, Gary King, to describe a mathematical model. She does not cite King in parentheses or put his words in quotation marks.

While some of Gay’s defenders have claimed that technical descriptions do not require attribution in the social sciences, since there are only so many ways to explain a method or a formula, a Harvard handbook from 1998—the year Gay completed her dissertation—says otherwise.

“Citing tells your readers that the strategy or method isn’t original with you and allows them to consult its original context,” the handbook states. King, who has downplayed previous charges against Gay, did not respond to a request for comment.

The rest of the new examples center on a 1996 paper by Frank Gilliam, “Exploring Minority Empowerment: Symbolic Politics, Governing Coalitions and Traces of Political Style in Los Angeles,” that Gay repeatedly quotes without attribution, changing just a few words here or there. Those passages describe big-picture findings and do not include technical verbiage. Gilliam, now the chancellor of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, did not respond to a request for comment.

The new complaint comes as an increasing number of Harvard students are speaking out against Gay, arguing that she has been held to a lower standard than the average undergraduate. One student on Harvard’s honor council, a jury-like body that adjudicates allegations of plagiarism and cheating, wrote in an anonymous op-ed that students are routinely suspended for doing what Gay did. Some students have called on Gay to resign, and others seem reluctant to defend their embattled president.

“President Gay Plagiarized, but She Should Stay,” read the headline of a Harvard Crimson editorial. “For Now.” The paper says the allegations of plagiarism are focused on “her PhD dissertation and two of her 11 published journal articles,” leaving out the many allegations relating to articles that were not peer-reviewed.

The paper’s qualified editorial position—”for now”—represents a shift in tone from the paper’s editorial board, which previously opined that—for the sake of a “free democracy”—Gay “must not yield” to “partisan attacks” in the wake of her disastrous testimony on anti-Semitism.

Gay’s most outspoken defenders have been her faculty colleagues. Randall Kennedy, a Harvard Law School professor, told the New York Times that the plagiarism charges were ginned up by “professional vilifiers” and “bad faith” actors—and went on to suggest the university may not cooperate with the congressional investigation underway into its adjudication of Gay’s work.

Another Harvard lawyer, Charles Fried, was more explicit, describing the allegations as an “extreme right-wing attack on elite institutions.”

“If it came from some other quarter, I might be granting it some credence,” he told the Times. “But not from these people.”

Harvard said in December that Gay’s “duplicative language,” while “regrettable,” did not constitute research misconduct because it was not “intentional or reckless,” citing a policy that only governs faculty and is less stringent than the rules for students.

But as more allegations have surfaced, some professors have begun to break ranks. A few told the Boston Globe in December that Gay’s treatment reeked of hypocrisy and double standards. And Omar Haque, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and a member of the university’s Council on Academic Freedom, said that the sheer breadth of the examples—especially those from the pre-word processor days—made it hard to fathom that everything was unintentional.

“Gay’s alleged plagiarism in the 1990s may be more serious than in in recent years,” he told the Free Beacon, “because prior to the use of computers to highlight and copy/paste text in seconds, plagiarism was more likely to be non-accidental and intentional and reckless.”

Haque, who said he was speaking only in a personal capacity, added that it took “greater effort” to plagiarize with a typewriter.

The blowback has been exacerbated by the Harvard Corporation’s feckless response to the allegations, which it initially tried to squash with a legal threat to the New York Post—and to the unnamed whistleblower who brought those allegations to the Post’s attention.

Through the bellicose litigation boutique Clare Locke, Harvard said in October that it would sue for “immense damages” if the Post published a story on the charges. It also “threatened to use legal means to out who had supplied the comparisons,” according to the paper’s reporting.

That person, a professor at another university, whom the Free Beacon has identified and granted anonymity, is behind the Monday complaint to Harvard, as well as a separate complaint last month alleging around 40 cases of plagiarism. While several Harvard scholars have faced plagiarism allegations since the early 2000s, none have seen such a large percentage of their work implicated.

Beyond outlining the new charges against Gay, the latest complaint—25 pages of which are devoted to outlining the various examples of Gay’s alleged plagiarism—argues that Harvard’s legal saber-rattling violated its research misconduct policy for faculty, which forbids retaliation against complainants.

“At one point Gay and Harvard asked the Post, ‘Why would someone making such a complaint be unwilling to attach their name to it,’” the Monday complaint reads. “I was unwilling because I feared that Gay and Harvard would violate their policies, behave more like a cartel with a hedge fund attached than a university, try to seek ‘immense’ damages from me and who knows what else.”

Culled from The Washington Free Bacon

By Uthman Salami

A suspect identified as Ibrahim Salisu has been taken into custody by the Ogun State Police Command for allegedly macheting his brother, Malaimi Yellow, to death over alleged sexual demand.

PUNCH Metro learnt from the state command that the incident happened in the Araromi Street, Sango-Ota area at about 11:00 p.m. on Friday.

Our correspondent learnt from the police that the 54-year-old had been allegedly pestering his little brother for sex.

The police alleged that following Yellow’s ceaseless demands, the younger brother was said to have drawn out a machete to end his life.

The spokesperson for the command, Odutola Omolola, told PUNCH Metro in an exclusive interview on Sunday that the corpse of Yellow had been recovered and deposited at the Ifo General Hospital Mortuary for autopsy.

“He has confessed to the crime. He told our men, who arrested him, that he killed his brother because he kept disturbing him for sex. His case will soon be transferred once the preliminary investigation is completed,” Odutola told PUNCH Metro.

According to crime statistics for December 2023, exclusively made available to our correspondent on Sunday, before this current incident, the state had recorded about 18 murder cases and an additional eight sexual-related offenses across the state in the month alone.

Consequently, the police said they were working round-the-clock with other local security agencies to stem the tide of crimes in the state.

The Punch