The National Universities Commission, NUC, on Monday, denied reports that it uncovered a total of 100 fake professors in some universities across the country.

The Commission dismissed the reports in a statement by its Acting Executive Secretary, Chris Maiyaki, in Abuja on Monday.

Maiyaki described a report titled, “About 100 fake professors just uncovered in Nigerian universities – NUC’, as ill-conceived and a ploy by unscrupulous persons to create disquiet at both national and international levels.

“The attention of the Commission has been drawn to news items, circulating on the social media, some national dailies and television stations, to the effect that the Commission has just “discovered over 100 fake Professors in Nigerian Universities,” Maiyaki said.

According to him, the fake news items had been circulating in two forms – as a link to a 2019 online news item and as a separate list of names of the alleged fake professors in various Nigerian universities, which he said was not the case.

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He said that based on the verified data, the Commission then in a landmark accomplishment, first published the list of full professors who participated in the exercise in 2019.

He added that it was understood that this would be succeeded by a continuous process of updating the list of full professors.

Maiyaki questioned the rationale behind recycling the ‘stale’ 2019 news of an activity it initiated, conducted, and laid to rest in the same year.

“The purpose and objective of resurrecting in 2024 (more than four years later) this no-longer-fresh news, is clearly intended to generate unnecessary controversy.

“The Commission owes it a solemn duty to protect and guard the integrity of the many hardworking and committed academics in the NUS, who have earned national and international respect and recognition,” he added.