An undercover journalist, Umar Audu, said he received his certificate from a Cotonou-based University in Benin Republic like a pizza within six weeks.
Audu, a reporter with the Daily Nigerian newspapers, stated this in an interview on Channels Television monitored by our reporter on Wednesday.
He said, “This certificate will be delivered to you just like you ordered for a pizza or something and you give them your location, and it is delivered to you. That was what motivated me to conduct this investigation.
“We have done a similar investigation in the past in 2018, which led to the government taking certain decisions. These things keep going on despite pronouncements by the Federal Government,” Audu added.
According to him, the certificate was delivered like pizza after payment was made.
The undercover reporter also received the school’s transcript which bore the authentic scan code of the school.
The certificate and transcript bore the authentic scan code of Ecole Superieure de Gestion et de Technologies, ESGT, Benin Republic, and it came at an affordable rate.
Recall that Audu, in his investigative report titled, “How Daily Nigerian reporter bagged Cotonou varsity degree in 6 weeks,” exposed a booming certificate racketeering syndicate in neighbouring African countries like Benin Republic and Togo that specialises in selling university degrees to willing buyers from Nigeria.
His investigation forced the Federal Government to suspend the accreditation and evaluation of degree certificates from the Benin Republic and Togo.
Speaking on the investigation, Audu said, “I never travelled out of Nigeria during this investigation.
” According to the certificate issued, Audu commenced his programme in 2018 and graduated on September 5, 2022. He thereafter used the fake certificate to participate in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme without being detected.
