The National Universities Commission has revealed that there were over 61,000 lecturers teaching in Nigeria’s 174 universities while only about 9,000 of them are professors.

The commission added that despite the 9000 authentic professors, there were a number of fake professors operating in the Nigerian university system which might be more than 100.

The NUC Executive Secretary, Prof Abubakar Rasheed, stated these in Abuja on Monday during a press conference.

It will be recalled that the NUC, in its November bulletin, had said it had uncovered 100 fake professors in universities across the country during a verification exercise.

The ES noted that the NUC, as part of the measures at repositioning our universities, recently verified and published a full directory of professors, during which it unearthed the fake dons.

He said,

“In the process of validating the submissions, university senates have in some cases uncovered that quite a number of professors are either fake or are yet to mature to full professor.

“There have been massive reforms the commission initiated in the last three years, including curriculum re-engineering, the introduction of new programmes, unbundling of some programmes, research and innovation among others. These are all aimed at overhauling the Nigerian university system to bring it to 21st-century standard.

“It is absolutely untrue that the Federal Government had abrogated the catchment area as part of the criteria for admission into Nigerian universities.

“There are about 61,000 lecturers teaching in Nigerian universities while only about 9,000 of them are professors. Meanwhile, we express worries over the upsurge of illegal degree-awarding institutions.

“The commission is compiling a comprehensive list of such illegal universities and we are working with the National Youth Service Corps to ensure that graduates of such institutions and other mushroom universities from neighbouring countries are not mobilised for the one-year mandatory service.”

Rasheed added the NUC had constituted 1,600 panels selected from different universities across the country to undertake the accreditation of programmes in the tertiary institutions.