Strictly Personal

Femi Adesina’s Parting Doctoral Fraud By Farooq A. Kperogi

Published

12 months ago

May 28, 2023

While Muhammadu Buhari and honchos of his eight-year ruinous regime busied themselves with a feverish last-minute plunder of the public treasury, Femi Adesina chose to deploy his waning symbolic resource as Buhari’s media aide to hatch a brassy plunder of a scholarly laurel.

In a social media post dishonestly titled “HONOUR FROM ACROSS THE SEAS,” Adesina misled Nigerians into thinking that a UK institution of higher learning had conferred an honorary doctorate on him. “Never thought I would ever have the appellation ‘Dr’ to my name, except if I went to herbal school, as an imminent retiree,” he wrote. “But what did I see? A notification from Learn To Live Business School, United Kingdom.”

There are multiple layers of dissimulation embedded in these two sentences, which I’ll unpack for the undiscerning. First, it is dishonest to call “Learn to Live Business School” (what a name!) a UK institution. It is not. The “school” started life as a consulting firm in Enugu, Nigeria, in 2012, according to its website. In 2016, it became a “business school.”

Note, though, that it has no accreditation from the National Universities Commission (NUC), the unit of government that statutorily accredits degree-granting institutions in Nigeria, and therefore can’t legitimately confer degrees, including honorary degrees, on anybody.

Learn to Live Business School’s only claim to legitimacy is that it has been registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission and that it is “Accredited by The Presidency, Nigerian Council for Management Development (NCMD) in 2020,” according to its website. You can’t make this stuff up! Adesina is the chief spokesperson for the presidency. Now connect the dots. When was the presidency vested with the authority to accredit degree-granting institutions in Nigeria?

Even more curiously, how did an Enugu-based “consulting firm” that upgraded itself to a business school on a whim without approval from the NUC but through the questionable imprimatur of the presidency suddenly become a UK-based institution? The answer is on its website. In 2019, it said, it “registered in London United Kingdom UK Gazette NO.11834639”! That’s it!
A “school” that has existed in Nigeria since 2012 chose to register as a business in the UK seven years later, and it suddenly becomes a “UK institution” whose fraudulent and worthless “honour” is giddily celebrated as coming “from across the seas”! Display of inferiority complex has never been more cringey than this.

Well, Learn to Live Business School lists its London address as “71 – 75, Shelton Street, Covenant [sic] Garden London WC24 9JQ United Kingdom.” When I searched the address on Google, I discovered two oddities. One, they misspelled “Covent” as “Covenant.” How can you not know the address where your “school” is located if you truly live, learn, and teach there?

Two, UK’s Companies House Data says, “There are 553 companies at this address,” which indicates that it’s not a campus. It’s merely an office space that multiple people probably rent to lend locational legitimacy to the businesses they registered in the UK.

But being registered as a business in the UK is not synonymous with being accredited to offer degrees in the UK. Learn to Live Business School is not accredited to offer degrees, whether earned or honorary, in the UK.

According to Stafford Global, “In the UK it is illegal to offer a qualification that is or might seem to be a UK degree unless the University is recognised by the Government (accredited).”

The group adds that “The external body (independent of the Government) that reviews UK universities is called the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) who will recommend (or renew) accreditation to the UK Government if the University has met stringent quality standards.”

I searched “Learn to Live Business School” in “The OfS Register” (https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/the-register/the-ofs-register/#/), the database of accredited degree-awarding schools in England, and nothing came up. So, the folks at Learn to Live Business School might have broken UK law by masquerading as a UK institution to award an honorary degree to Adesina.

The fraud is even messier than it appears. For instance, Adesina said, “The investiture was done by Dr Peter Akubo and Dr Nelson Kingsley.” Well, it appears that “Dr Nelson Kingsley” who identifies himself as “the Rector Learn To Live Business School Limited” on LinkedIn doesn’t even have a master’s degree, much less a doctorate.

In both his LinkedIn and LLBS profiles, Nelson lists his “B.Sc Accountancy” from Enugu State University of Technology (ESUT), his ESUT “BUSINESS SCHOOL Certificate in Strategic Resources and Personnel Re-Positioning for Coping with Economy in Recession and Transition,” and his being “Trained by Fela Durotoye (VIP Consult)” as his only qualifications.

Several other names that appear on the “Advisory Board, Faculty and Lead Instructors” page of Learn to Live Business School’s site have “Dr.” prefixed to them even when they don’t claim to have earned a PhD. Maybe they became “Drs” the same way Adesina just did.

This is worse than a diploma mill scam. It’s a multiplex dupery. It would be interesting to know how much Adesina paid for this “honor from across the seas.”

Adesina said he “never thought” he “would ever have the appellation ‘Dr’” to his name. He may if he earns a legitimate doctorate in the future. Being younger than 60 years, he is still too young to give up getting a doctorate. In my university here in the United States, I have taught students in their late 60s and early 70s who retired as successful CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

In fact, an 81-year-old man graduated from my university this month with a bachelor’s degree. That’s why Hausa people say “Gemu baya hana ilimi,” that is, a beard (symbolizing advanced age) does not impede the acquisition of knowledge.

If Adesina had any shame, he would never prefix “Dr.” to his name simply because Learn to Live Business School (which doesn’t even claim to award bachelor’s degrees) gave him a fraudulent honorary doctorate. Apart from the fact that his honorary doctorate is from an illegitimate institution that has no power to award degrees in Nigeria and in the UK, only people who have earned a PhD, a DPhil, an S.J.D. or J.S.D. (i.e., the Doctor of the Science of Law), an Ed.D., a medical degree, or other earned professional doctorates can legitimately prefix “Dr.” to their names.

The tradition in many universities worldwide is to insist that recipients of honorary doctoral degrees bear their titles post-nominally, that is, after their names. Example: Femi Adesina, LLD h.c. (“h.c.” stands for honoris causa) but NOT “Dr. Femi Adesina” and certainly not “Dr. Femi Adesina, LLD h.c.”

Of course, I am aware that there are many famous doctors who weren’t actually doctors. For instance, Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s Founding Fathers who is known to most of us as that man whose face graces the American 100-dollar bill, insisted on being called “Dr. Franklin” even though he only had honorary doctoral degrees.

Maya Angelou, the prolific and well-regarded African-American poet, was another well-known personage who insisted on being addressed as “Dr. Angelou” on account of the honorary doctorates many universities awarded her. Angelou didn’t even have a bachelor’s degree, but she was deservedly appointed as the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies in 1982 at Wake Forest University on account of her prodigious and inimitable contributions to the world of literature.

Back home, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first ceremonial president, was and is still addressed as a doctor even though he never earned a PhD, although he started and gave up doctoral studies at Columbia University. Tai Solarin was and still is addressed as a “Dr.” even though he never earned a PhD. Both Azikiwe and Solarin had multiple legitimate honorary doctorates from several universities.

Adesina doesn’t have the gravitas of the people whose names were unconventionally prefixed with “Dr.” even though they only had honorary doctorates. If the title means anything to him, he should enroll at a real university and earn it.

Fortunately, he has inspiration from his immediate family to achieve this. Many of his siblings are PhDs and professors. For example, Professor Olutayo Charles Adesina, a well-respected professor of history at the University of Ibadan, is his full sibling. I am sure he is embarrassed on Femi’s behalf. That’s such a sad way to depart from the seat of power.

Related Topics:Farooq A. Kperogi Featured opinion strictly personal

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Strictly Personal

In 64 years, how has IDA reduced poverty in Africa? By Tee Ngugi

Published

20 mins ago

May 7, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The name of the organisation is as opaque as a name can get: World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA).

I had never heard of it. And suppose I, who follows socioeconomic developments that affect Africa, had never heard of it until last week when it convened in Nairobi. In that case, likely, only a handful of people outside those who serve its bureaucracy had ever heard of it.

Maybe IDA intends to remain shadowy like magicians, emerging occasionally to perform illusions that give hope to Africa’s impoverished masses that deliverance from poverty and despair is around the corner.

So, I had to research to find out who the new illusionist in town was. IDA was founded in 1960. Thirty-nine African countries, including Kenya, are members. Its mission is “to combat poverty by providing grants and low-interest loans to support programmes that foster economic growth, reduce inequalities, and enhance living standards for people in developing nations”.

It’s amazing how these kinds of organisations have developed a language that distorts reality. In George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the totalitarian state of Oceania devises a new language. “Newspeak” limits the thoughts of citizens of Oceania so that they are incapable of questioning whatever the regime does.

Let’s juxtapose the reality in Africa against IDA’s mission. Africa has some of the poorest people in the world. It contributes a paltry two percent of international trade. It contributes less than one per cent of patents globally.

The continent has the largest wealth disparities in the world. Millions of people across Africa are food insecure, needing food aid. A study has indicated that Africa is among the most hostile regions in the world for women and girls, because of residual cultural attitudes and the failure of governments to implement gender equality policies.

Africa has the largest youth unemployment rate in the world. Africa’s political class is the wealthiest in the world. Africa remains unsustainably indebted. The people who live in Africa’s slums and unplanned urban sprawls have limited opportunities and are susceptible to violent crime and natural and manmade disasters.

As speeches in “Newspeak” were being made at the IDA conference, dozens of poor Kenyans were being killed by floods. These rains had been forecast, yet the government, not surprisingly, was caught flatfooted.

So in its 64-year existence, how has IDA reduced poverty and inequality in Africa? How has its work enhanced living standards when so many Africans are drowning in the Mediterranean Sea trying to escape grinding poverty and hopelessness?

As one watched the theatre of leaders of the poorest continent arriving at the IDA illusionists’ conference in multimillion-dollar vehicles, wearing designer suits and wristwatches, with men in dark suits and glasses acting a pantomime of intimidation, and then listened to their “Newspeak,” one felt like weeping for the continent. The illusionists had performed their sleight of hand.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator

Strictly Personal

This Sudan war is too senseless; time we ended it, By Tee Ngugi

Published

1 week ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Why are the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RPF) engaged in a vicious struggle? It is not that they have ideological, religious or cultural differences.

Not that people should fight because of these kinds of differences, but we live in a world where social constructions often lead to war and genocide. It is not that either side is fighting to protect democracy. Both sides were instruments of the rapacious dictatorship of Omar el-Bashir, who was overthrown in 2019.

Both are linked to the massacres in Darfur during Bashir’s rule that led to his indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. They both stood by as ordinary, unarmed people took to the streets and forced the removal of the Bashir regime.

None of these entities now fighting to the last Sudanese citizen has any moral authority or constitutional legitimacy to claim power. They both should have been disbanded or fundamentally reformed after the ouster of Bashir.

The SAF and the RSF are fighting to take over power and resources and continue the repression and plunder of the regime they had supported for so long. And, as you can see from news broadcasts, they are both well-versed in violence and plunder.

Since the fighting began in 2023, both sides have been accused of massacres that have left more than 30,000 people dead. Their fighting has displaced close to 10 million people. Their scramble for power has created Sudan’s worst hunger crisis in decades. Millions of refugees have fled into Chad, Ethiopia and South Sudan.

The three countries are dubious places of refuge. Chad is a poor country because of misrule. It also experiences jihadist violence. Ethiopia is still simmering with tensions after a deadly inter-ethnic war.

And South Sudan has never recovered from a deadly ethnic competition for power and resources. African refugees fleeing to countries from which refugees recently fled or continue to flee sums up Africa’s unending crisis of governance.

Africa will continue to suffer these kinds of power struggles, state failure and breakdown of constitutional order until we take strengthening and depersonalising our institutions as a life and death issue. These institutions anchor constitutional order and democratic process.

Strong independent institutions would ensure the continuity of the constitutional order after the president leaves office. As it is, presidents systematically weaken institutions by putting sycophants and incompetent morons in charge. Thus when he leaves office by way of death, ouster or retirement, there is institutional collapse leading to chaos, power struggles and violence. The African Union pretends crises such as the one in Sudan are unfortunate abnormally. However, they are systemic and predictable. Corrupt dictatorships end in chaos and violence.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator.