Strictly Personal

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

Published

4 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

As African leaders give excuses, peers reach for the skies, By Tee Ngugi

Published

1 day ago

September 23, 2023

Ifeoluwa Dada

Many Africans might have missed an event that should have been at the centre of the news. On August 23, 2023, India landed a spacecraft on the moon, making history as the fourth country to do so.

India is in exalted company. The other countries in that rarefied club are Russia, the US and China. India did not just land a spacecraft on the moon, it landed the craft near the south pole of the moon — the only country to achieve such a feat.

The reporting on this in the African press missed the significance of India’s achievement. Most media reported it as if it was another routine space mission by another power. First, any landing on the moon or any missions into space by any country are not routine.

They demonstrate the most advanced science and technology and their economic might. They showcase meticulous organisation, steely political will to achieve national ambitions, and an extraordinary sense of patriotism among citizens to make their country great.

Read: India becomes first nation to land spacecraft near Moon’s south pole

There is another reason why this news should have dominated our airwaves and discourse. India was colonised for more years than most African countries. India, like African countries, is multiethnic and multireligious. India, like Africa, has suffered from social strife. India, like many African countries, has gone to war with neighbouring countries. India, just like us, has to deal with disabling outdated traditional customs and beliefs.

And yet it did not use any of these characteristics as an excuse not to reach, quite literally, for the skies.

Further, India suffers from Monsoons and volcanic activity from which, for the most part, we are spared. It has a huge population, which many African countries do not. Yet it did not use these as excuses not to compete with, and sometimes beat, the best.

Perhaps we let this event pass without much commentary because we felt ashamed. Ghana became independent in 1957, 10 years after India.

Decades later, India had expanded its railway network to become the largest in the world. Ghana just expanded the railway left by the British the other day. As Ghana’s economy collapsed, India’s rose steadily. As Ghana’s education system stagnated, India advanced in science and technology, enabling it to explode a nuclear device in 1974, 27 years after Independence.

As Ghana’s heath system collapsed, India advanced theirs. Today, India has very advanced medical science and health system. Our leaders, after collapsing our health systems, seek treatment in India. India has expanded its GDP to become the fifth largest in the world. Ghana’s GDP is $80 billion, below that of Luxembourg, a tiny country of less than a million people.

Ghana is, of course, representative of the African post-independence experience of mismanagement, thievery and collapse. Will India’s example wean us from our “Pathological Excuse Syndrome” (PES)? Unlikely.

The Kenya Kwanza regime has churned out more excuses in one year than all previous regimes combined.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator.

Strictly Personal

What a beautiful summit! Now to vague promises by rich North, Joachim Buwembo

Published

3 days ago

September 21, 2023

Ifeoluwa Dada

In an average lifetime, an African is expected to get involved in and attend many weddings (and funerals). First, you attend those of your elders, which leaves you hoping that yours too will not only come one day but that it will also be more glamorous.

Then there were those weddings (and funerals) of your contemporaries for which you have to pay the ‘African tax’, partly out of fear and hope that when your turn comes, people will contribute generously since you will have been known to be a generous contributor yourself.

Finally, you have to attend weddings of the younger generations, including virtual ones like the ones that were held during the Covid-19 lockdown, or those being staged in different countries where the wedding couples live.

In my idealistic opinion, one shortcoming of many wedding formats and texts is the vague and often immeasurable nature of the promises made.

Fine, the specifics and details could darken the joyful, colourful ceremony and even bog it down, but in a separate, written and signed agreement, things should be spelt out. This would probably even make divorce proceedings less messy.

How for instance is love measured? What does providing for and protecting include? And comfort? At least “until death do us part” is fair for it specifies an event and so no one can compel a surviving spouse to be buried with a dead partner (and you know how many relatives would love to do that and then take over the house and other valuables). But one can argue their way out of the other wedding promises.

The climax of wedding injustices comes from the preachers who urge the partners to always forgive the other party for whatever crimes they commit. If courts operated in the same spirit, all murderers and robbers would walk free to continue murdering and robbing more victims while counting on systemic forgiveness.

The text of the declaration at the end of the big Nairobi climate summit for Africa brought to mind a glittering wedding, whose success is measured first on its having been held at all, the number of guests, the size of the cake and the courses of the meal. Africans should hope that future climate summits are not measured the way a bride measures a wedding (including how less beautiful her lady friends looked), but in tangible, countable outcomes.

At the Nairobi climate summit, we Africans demanded specifics from the rich countries with which we are justifiably angry. We were accurate on what they owe and should pay in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Then we also made our ‘commitments’ but were careful enough to remain non-committal. We promised policy formulations, the right investments and job creation.

Somehow, we did not say how many jobs and by when. This was a climate summit, for God’s sake, and the heads of state who have armies of researchers at their disposal should have specified, or at least estimated, the number of jobs to be created in the provision and application of clean energy.

Was there any commitment to investing in the conversion of the continent’s ‘abundant rare’ earth minerals into mobility batteries that reduce pollution rather than “exporting jobs” to already rich countries for a pittance? Was there a commitment to how many megawatts of hydroelectric power will be committed to the electrification of railways by which year?

We remained silent on acres or square kilometres in reforestation. We mentioned the carbon sinks of the Congo and the savannah but did not specify how we shall protect them. In short, we did not put any figures or timelines on our ‘commitments’.

The Africa Climate Summit was thus like a wedding which the bride sees as an achievement in itself, that she has been taken down the aisle (even if the guy turns out to be a wife beater and drunkard).

For Kenya, again staging the inaugural summit in itself was a success, for beating the other potential brides on the continent – Morocco, South Africa, Egypt and lately Rwanda – from a tourism promotion point of view.

All the same, we rejoice for the very good effort by Kenya and do hope that subsequent such summits will have explicit deliverables and timelines on which the Africans can hold their leaders to account.