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"They are not victims but part of the criminal chain": the fake foreign degrees from Uganda, Kenya, Benin and Togo that Nigeria stopped recognising
In January 2024, Nigeria's National Universities Commission announced it had uncovered dozens of fraudulent degrees obtained by Nigerian students from institutions in Uganda and Kenya, following the exposure of degree mills in Benin and Togo whose accreditation Nigeria had already suspended. The reporting, carried by the Amsterdam News and IDN, followed an undercover investigation by a Nigerian journalist who obtained a "four-year" degree from a Beninese university in under two months.
The scheme is the accelerated-degree mill: an institution abroad, sometimes licensed to operate locally, sells a completed programme to students who spend little or no time there, with transcripts and certificates produced to order. East Africa's role, as described, was the second wave after West Africa's mills were shut. Nigeria's education minister, Tahir Mamman, was unusually blunt about the buyers: "I have no sympathy for those with fake certificates from foreign countries. They are not victims but part of the criminal chain [who] should be arrested." The government moved to identify and remove holders of fraudulent foreign degrees from public positions.
Uganda and Kenya have genuine, well-regarded universities — Makerere's medical school is one of Africa's oldest — and Uganda in particular hosts a growing number of medical students from across the continent. The mill problem does not touch those institutions; it touches the students who chose a "flexible" alternative and the employers and regulators who must now treat every East African credential with more suspicion, which is a cost the honest graduates pay.
For a student anywhere in Africa considering a medical degree in another African country, the checks are the same as for Europe or the Caribbean, with one addition. Confirm the university with the destination's national council for higher education (Uganda's NCHE, Kenya's CUE) and the medical school with its medical council; confirm your own council's recognition; and be specifically wary of any programme whose duration is shorter than your own country's standard, or that promises credit for "prior learning" you did not do. The minister's warning is the regulatory climate now: a purchased degree is treated as participation in a crime, not as being cheated.
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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.