Kenya and Uganda Tighten Verification for Nigerian Students Amid Certificate Scandal

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced that Kenya and Uganda are seeking verification of records for Nigerian candidates applying to their tertiary institutions. This was disclosed in JAMB’s 2024 policy meeting document, which emphasized that the board cannot forge records and must rely on information provided by Nigerian institutions.

This development follows the federal government’s suspension of certificate verification from several African universities, including those in Kenya and Uganda, due to allegations of certificate racketeering.

The government had previously set up an Inter-Ministerial Investigative Committee to address these issues after an investigative report exposed fake degree mills in the Benin Republic. Consequently, the government banned the accreditation and evaluation of degrees from Benin Republic and Togo, with the Minister of Education pledging to eliminate holders of fake degrees from the system.