📰 From the news · Impersonating a real college/agent
A nursing assistant who printed his own university and council certificates, ran a hospital for three years and performed caesarean sections: the Ikorodu arrest
Nigeria's regulators have published lists of illegal universities and unapproved clerkships, recorded elsewhere on this site. The Ikorodu case shows what a person does with a forged version of the real thing.
According to ThisDay, Vanguard and The Guardian, the Zone 2 Police Command in Lagos arrested a 37-year-old man, Tayo Shakirudeen, in May 2024 as the "medical director" of Skylink Medical Centre at Elepe, Ikorodu. Detectives led by Superintendent Mariam Ogunmolasuyi acted on information from the Elepe community. Officers recovered what they described as two forged certificates, one purporting to be a degree from Obafemi Awolowo University and the other a registration certificate of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria. The police said the suspect admitted producing both electronically, having obtained no degree from the university and no registration from the council. He had worked as a nursing assistant at another medical centre in the Majidun area before opening his own hospital, and in three years of practice had, the police said, carried out three operations, two caesarean sections and an appendicectomy; about 200 patient cards were found at the premises, which were sealed pending investigation. He is entitled to the presumption of innocence.
The case is as plain as fraud gets, and its two forged documents are the two that every check on this site turns on: the degree from the university, and the registration from the council. Both exist in public records that the forger could not alter. Obafemi Awolowo University keeps its graduate records; the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria publishes its register online. A patient, a partner or a supplier who had checked either would have closed Skylink in its first week rather than its third year.
For students the case is a reminder of why regulators insist on primary-source verification of foreign degrees, and why an agent's "attested copies" are not the same thing. The paper was perfect. The register was empty.
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This is a news-sourced case summary written by the TrustMBBS team, not a first-person account; see the sources above. They reflect one person's experience and are not a verdict on any institution. Report your own: Report a scam or tell your story.