Nigeria Enforces New Regulation: No More Honorary Doctorates for Serving Public Officials

The Federal Government has officially prohibited the awarding of honorary doctorate degrees to serving public officials across Nigeria. The directive, issued through the National Universities Commission (NUC), follows mounting concerns over widespread misuse and abuse of such honours.

The Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof. Abdullahi Ribadu, announced the decision in Abuja while receiving the report of a committee tasked with investigating the award and public use of honorary doctorate degrees in the country. He explained that the findings revealed alarming practices among institutions and recipients.

According to him, honorary degrees—which are traditionally given to individuals with exceptional achievements or exemplary service—have increasingly been misused, often for personal image-building or political advantage. He added that the situation has been worsened by unaccredited and illegal institutions, both local and foreign, operating as “honorary degree mills.”

Prof. Ribadu disclosed that the investigation uncovered numerous violations of the Keffi Declaration of 2012, an agreement by Vice-Chancellors to regulate the award of honorary degrees. The declaration expressly prohibits universities from awarding honorary doctorates to serving public officials and warns recipients against adopting the title “Dr” without clarification.

He noted that using “Dr” based solely on an honorary degree without proper disclosure amounts to false representation, which is an offence under Nigerian fraud-related laws.

The committee’s report identified 32 institutions operating as degree mills in Nigeria. These include 10 unaccredited foreign universities, 4 unlicensed local universities, 15 professional bodies without degree-awarding powers, and three other institutions that legally cannot confer degrees. Some of them, Ribadu added, even award fake professorships.

He emphasised that the law empowers the NUC to regulate both the award and use of honorary doctorate degrees in Nigeria. Only fully approved public or private universities are allowed to confer such honours.

Ribadu further clarified that recipients of legitimate honorary degrees must use appropriate titles such as “Doctor of Literature (Honoris Causa)” rather than adopting the title “Dr,” which is strictly reserved for holders of earned doctoral degrees and qualified medical professionals.

He stressed that misuse of honorary titles undermines the credibility of Nigerian universities and weakens public confidence in genuine academic qualifications.