The University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) has again disowned the Bachelor of Science degree certificate in the possession of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji.
Mr Nnaji presented the discredited certificate as part of his credentials to support his ministerial appointment in 2023.
The university, again on Tuesday, distanced itself from the certificate, in a fresh letter responding to PREMIUM TIMES’ separate Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the institution’s registrar.
The new letter dated 6 October (Tuesday) and signed by Senior Deputy Registrar (Records), F.C. Achiuwa, on behalf of UNN Registrar, Celine Nnebedum, came four days after PREMIUM TIMES received a similar response from the vice-chancellor to the newspaper’s separate FoI enquiry.
Corroborating Vice-Chancellor Simon Ortuanya’s earlier letter dated 2 October, the new communication from the Registrar’s office maintained that although Mr Nnaji was admitted into the university in 1981, he neither graduated nor was issued any certificate.
“We wish to inform the Premium Times that although he (Nnaji) was admitted into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1981, we have searched through the University of Nigeria graduation record for 1985 session and we could not find Mr Nnaji Geoffrey Uchechukwu’s name,” the registrar office wrote.
The official stressed that “there is no indication” that the degree certificate which the minister possesses “was issued by the University of Nigeria.”
The letter is the latest confirmation of PREMIUM TIMES’ findings from two years of investigating Mr Nnaji’s credentials. This newspaper published an investigative report on Saturday revealing that the minister forged the UNN bachelor’s degree and national youth service certificates he presented to secure his ministerial appointment.
UNN’s vice-chancellor, Mr Ortuanya, who assumed office in August, had similarly written to PREMIUM TIMES in his 2 October response to the newspaper’s FoI request that from every available records and information from the university, “we are unable to confirm that Mr Geoffrey Uchechukwu Nnaji, the current Minister of Science and Technology, graduated from the University of Nigeria in July 1985, as there are no records of his completion of study in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.”
“Flowing from above, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka DID NOT and consequently, COULD NOT have issued the purported certificate, or at all, in July 1985 to Mr Geoffrey Uchechukwu Nnaji, the current Minister of Science and Technology.”
Alongside his response, Mr Ortuanya shared with PREMIUM TIMES the university registrar’s earlier letter dated 13 May 2025, issued to the Public Complaints Commission, stating that “there is no indication that the certificate was issued by the University of Nigeria.”
There are now three letters from the university since May consistently contradicting an earlier response to the People’s Gazette newspaper on the matter. On 21 December 2023, Celine Nnebedum, the university registrar, responded to the newspaper’s enquiry, saying Mr Nnaji graduated from the institution in July 1985.
The official has since recanted the claim in the letter sent by her office to the Public Complaint Commission in May and in the latest one sent to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday.
Why PREMIUM TIMES got double confirmation
PREMIUM TIMES couriered separate FoI request letters to the offices of UNN vice-chancellor and registrar on 29 September.
It was an approach we adopted learning from the experience of the first attempt to get the official information regarding Mr Nnaji’s certificate from the university during the two years of investigating the minister’s academic credentials.
Instead of responding to our initial enquiries, the university officials gave our reporters the cold shoulder and passed the buck between themselves.
We first made an FoI request to the university on 1 February 2024. But officials failed to respond to our enquiry despite several reminders and follow-up visits to the institution by our reporter. During one such visit, a registry staff member compelled our reporter to pay a N15,000 processing fee. We did, but still received no response to our letter.
On 29 September, we sent separate letters to the university’s registrar and the vice-chancellor in hopes of getting a different outcome.
The vice-chancellor happened to be the first reply to our letter on 2 October. Then the registrar’s response followed on Tuesday (6 October), reiterating that the minister did not complete his studies at the institution and was not issued a certificate.
What we found in our investigation
Allegations of certificate forgery have swirled around Mr Nnaji since July 2023, when President Tinubu sent his name along with those of other ministerial nominees to the Senate for confirmation.
Critics have long insisted that Mr Nnaji did not complete his university education and that both the bachelor’s degree and NYSC certificate he presented to President Tinubu, as well as to the offices of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the State Security Service, and the Senate, were forged.
A painstaking two-year investigation published by PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday revealed that Mr Nnaji forged the credentials he submitted to President Bola Tinubu and the Nigerian Senate during his ministerial confirmation in 2023.
The report specifically exposed how the minister forged his degree and NYSC certificates.
This newspaper reported on Sunday that the minister has admitted that UNN never issued him a degree certificate.
Many Nigerians have expressed outrage over the minister’s certificate forgery.
READ ALSO: Certificate Forgery: Embattled minister’s aide makes false bribery claim against PREMIUM TIMES
On Monday, Mr Nnaji was absent from a press conference his office called to address the matter. His aides, however, appeared on his behalf during which they made unsubstantiated claims, including the claim the minister indeed graduated from UNN.
PREMIUM TIMES later published documents showing that at the time Mr Nnaji claimed to have graduated from UNN and purportedly proceeded to participate in the mandatory national youth service, he was still exchanging correspondences with the institution on how he could re-sit a failed terminal course examination.
As a deflection strategy, Robert Ngwu, the spokesperson for the embattled minister, falsely accused PREMIUM TIMES of receiving N100 million in bribes from the Enugu State Government when he appeared on Channels Television Tuesday morning.
