The Federal Government has initiated the dismissal of workers holding certificates from unaccredited private tertiary institutions in the Benin Republic and Togo.
This action targets Federal Government employees who graduated from these institutions from 2017 onward.
Segun Imohiosen, spokesperson for the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, confirmed this move on Wednesday. The government emphasized that this initiative aims to purge the civil service of fraudulent elements.
In August, the Federal Government had announced that only eight universities in Togo and the Benin Republic were accredited to award degrees to Nigerians.
This followed an undercover investigation by a journalist who obtained a degree from a Benin Republic university in just two months and used it to participate in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.
As a result, the Nigerian government banned the accreditation and evaluation of degrees from tertiary institutions in the Benin Republic, Togo, and other foreign universities. An interministerial investigative committee was formed to investigate the activities of certificate racketeers.
The then Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, revealed that over 22,500 Nigerians had acquired fake degree certificates from the Benin Republic and Togo, and announced that these certificates would be invalidated.
Recently, some ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs), including the National Youth Services Corps, have started implementing this directive. NYSC Director of Information, Caroline Embu, confirmed that five staff members had been dismissed in line with the directive from the Office of the SGF.
She stated, “Five members of staff were affected by the directive contained in the letter from the Office of the SGF.”
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