The Federal Government says no fewer than 21,600 students are parading fake certificates obtained from degree mills institutions in Benin Republic, Togo and others.
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, disclosed this during a ministerial press briefing on his one year achievements in the ministry, in Abuja on Friday.
According to Mamman, 1,105 students are holding fake certificates from Togo alone.
The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that the federal government in March set up an Inter-Ministerial Investigative Committee on Degree Certificate Milling, to probe the activities of certificate racketeers.
This followed an investigative report published by Daily Nigerian which exposed the activities of fake degree mills in the Benin Republic.
The Minister said that fake degrees from Nigerian and foreign universities would be flushed out of the system.
“The federal government has directed that the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) to issue circular to flush out anybody with fake certificates from these institutions.
“In Togo, there are three universities that are officially approved and licenced to offer degree courses and in Benin Republic, we have five institutions licenced for degree courses,” he said.
Speaking on the challenges of tertiary institutions in meeting their needs as a result the high electricity tariffs, Mamman said President Bola Tinubu had approved a long term solution of powering the institutions through CNG.
He added that in the last one year, the ministry had been able to return about four million out-of-school children back to school.
He said this was achieved through the efforts of agencies under the ministry.
