The management of the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) in Enugu State has sanctioned the university’s Deputy Registrar and Unit Head of Students’ Records and Institutional Research, I.A.S. Onyeador, for issuing a document which falsely claimed that the then-Minister of Innovation, Science & Technology, Uche Nnaji, graduated from the institution.
Details of the sanctions against the university officials were contained in a report by an investigative panel set up by the Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa.
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The seven-member investigative panel was constituted on 23 November 2025 in response to Mr Nnaji’s petition to the education minister over his certificate forgery scandal after PREMIUM TIMES published an investigative report earlier in October last year, which revealed that the then-minister forged his degree and NYSC certificates.
The panel submitted its investigative report to the education minister in December 2025, which PREMIUM TIMES exclusively obtained after months of searching.
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The petition and setting up of the panel
In the petition dated 14 October 2025, Mr Nnaji alleged unethical disclosure, document tampering, and political manipulation of his academic records by senior UNN officials.
The former minister also accused the UNN Vice-Chancellor, Simon Ortuanya, a professor, and a former Acting Vice-Chancellor, Oguejiofor Ujam, also a professor, of “issuing forged or unauthorised correspondence, improperly accessing his academic file, and facilitating media publications that misrepresented his academic history.”
Mr Nnaji alleged that Mr Ortuanya’s response to PREMIUM TIMES’ Freedom of Information (FOI) Request – which confirmed that he (the then-minister) did not graduate from the institution or receive a university degree certificate – “constituted an unauthorised disclosure of his confidential academic data.”
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The former minister particularly raised concerns relating to whether the vice-chancellor exercised due process, followed proper approval channels, breached internal controls governing record confidentiality, and whether any political or external influences shaped the issuance of the correspondence to PREMIUM TIMES.
The panel, set up to investigate the allegations, was chaired by Rakiya Gambo Ilyasu, the director of the University Education Department in the ministry.
James Ocheido, the deputy director of the department in the ministry, served as its secretary.
Members of the panel were: the Director of Polytechnics and Allied Institutions Department in the ministry, Ejeh. A. U; his counterpart in the ministry’s Colleges of Education Department, U. C. Uba, and Mohammed Ayuba, a representative of the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC).
The Director of Human Resources Unit of the education ministry, Yusuf Saeed, and his counterpart in the ministry’s Legal Services Unit, Foluso Akinlonu, were also members of the panel.
The panel said it adopted “documentary review, interviews, verification, and technical audit as its methodological approach” to the investigation.
During the investigation, members physically visited UNN, engaged with the institution’s officials—including its vice-chancellor and former acting vice-chancellor—and reviewed necessary documents and university records.
The UNN officials interviewed during the investigation were the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Mr Ortuanya; a former Acting Vice-Chancellor, Mr Ujam; the Registrar, Celine Nnebedum; Records Unit officials; and other staff members involved in handling academic records.
The panel said that during the investigation, it also accessed and inspected Mr Nnaji’s academic files and internal correspondence – including the 2023 and 2025 letters issued by UNN.
It added that it examined UNN’s historic academic records, registry movement logs, Senate lists, convocation archives, electronic access logs, and other relevant documentation, including Mr Nnaji’s transcript request, as well as verification of the provenance and authenticity of letters issued to media organisations and government agencies by the university.
“The members of the panel arrived (UNN) in Nsukka on Sunday, being 23rd November, 2025. On Monday, 24th November, the panel paid a courtesy visit to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Simon Ortuanya and availed him with the purpose of the visit and proceeded to the venue the university provided for panel to use,” the report said.
Panel’s findings
PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that the panel found that Mr Nnaji indeed forged his UNN degree certificate.
It also confirmed that contrary to Mr Nnaji’s claims in the petition, Mr Ortuanya’s response to PREMIUM TIMES’ FOI request “followed a documented internal approval workflow” after seeking legal advice from the director of legal unit who informed the vice-chancellor that he was legally mandated to respond to this newspaper’s request in line with the FOI Act 2011.
“There is no evidence of external directives, political influence, unauthorised inputs, or bypassing of procedural steps. The approval process complied with internal procedures, FOI obligations, and legal advice. All steps were documented and traceable,” the panel said in the report.
It also said there was no evidence that the “internal drafts” or the vice-chancellor’s response to PREMIUM TIMES were leaked or altered or that the documents were “transmitted outside statutory procedures.”
It insisted that “the letter reached Premium Times through a formal, lawful FOI transmission and not through any unauthorised or clandestine channel.”
The offence of the UNN official
Recall that, on 21 December 2023, the university Registrar, Mrs Nnebedum, had reportedly issued a document to Peoples Gazette newspaper which falsely claimed that Mr Nnaji graduated from the institution in July 1985.
Mrs Nnebedum was responding to the newspaper’s enquiry on the then-minister’s academic records. But in a response to another enquiry on the matter from the Public Complaints Commission (PCC), the registrar recanted via a letter dated 23 May 2025, telling the PCC that the university searched its 1985 graduation records but could not find Mr Nnaji’s name on them.
According to the report, when confronted during the investigation, Mrs Nnebedum told the panel that she did not “personally compile or sign” the verification document forwarded to the Peoples Gazette newspaper but delegated the responsibility to the then Deputy Registrar, Mrs Onyeador, who compiled and signed the document.
The registrar further reported that the deputy registrar “issued the affirmative verification” to the newspaper “in error” because she and others in the Records Unit “relied on a Senate Result List that did not reflect Mr Nnaji’s final year record.”
She, however, said that the UNN management regrets the initial error which was “inadvertent,” and has taken “appropriate steps to correct the record and strengthen internal processes.”
When summoned by the probe panel, Mrs Onyeador admitted that she compiled and signed Mr Nnaji’s verification document released to the Peoples Gazette.
But she added that she reviewed Mr Nnaji’s file alongside the then Director of Legal Services Unit, Mathew Obayi, and the registrar on whose authority she signed the verification document.
She also admitted that she and others in her unit examined available documents on Mr Nnaji mainly from his department, but did not check his discredited degree certificate submitted for verification, nor the Senate Approval List for the 1985 graduating set because the documents could not be located at the time.
According to the panel report, the UNN authorities observed the “erroneous” certificate verification when they were compiling a similar verification on the same Mr Nnaji for the PCC which also requested it.
“In 2023, the Senate list was not found, and the Careers Unit could not produce the certificate. The (Records) unit relied on a handwritten grade and sampled certificates. Issuing confirmation under these conditions was a procedural breach,” the panel observed in its report.
Sanctions for the UNN official
According to the panel report, the UNN authorities already took disciplinary actions against Mrs Onyeador “by querying and redeploying her to a different unit” because she was “found culpable in the contradicted information.”
It is unclear, for now, if the university authorities also sanctioned Mrs Nnebedum, the institution’s registrar, for the incident.
Background
In October 2023, PREMIUM TIMES began an investigation into Mr Nnaji’s academic records.
The then-minister had submitted a degree and NYSC certificates to President Bola Tinubu and the Nigerian Senate during his ministerial confirmation in 2023.
He had claimed that he obtained the degree certificate from UNN where he claimed to have graduated from in 1985.
Apparently disturbed that he was under scrutiny, Mr Nnaji filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja to block both UNN and its vice-chancellor, Professor Ortuanya, from releasing his academic records.
Apart from the UNN and its vice-chancellor, the minister of education, the NUC, the university’s registrar, a former UNN Acting Vice-Chancellor, Mr Ujam, and the Senate of the university were listed as defendants in the suit.
Curiously, the then-minister admitted in his filings submitted to the court that he had yet to collect his UNN degree certificate from the university which further exposed him and confirmed PREMIUM TIMES’ findings that the degree certificate he submitted to Nigerian authorities was forged.
But before the then minister filed the suit, Mr Ortuanya had responded to PREMIUM TIMES’ FOI request, in which he confirmed that Mr Nnaji forged his UNN degree certificate.
The UNN registrar would, shortly after, corroborate Mr Ortuanya’s position, indicating that although Mr Nnaji was admitted into the university in 1981, he neither graduated nor was issued any certificate.
NYSC authorities, in response to a separate FOI request from PREMIUM TIMES, disowned the discharge certificate in the then-minister’s possession.
Mr Nnaji resigned from his position as minister three days after this newspaper published the investigation exposing how he forged his degree and NYSC certificates.
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Many Nigerians had called for Mr Nnaji’s prosecution, maintaining that his resignation was inadequate in the wake of his violations of various Nigerian laws, including Criminal Code Act.
Last week, a legal practitioner, Liborous Oshoma, criticised the Nigerian government for failing to prosecute Mr Nnaji, over the certificate forgery scandal, maintaining that people like the former minister “should be prosecuted and banned from holding public office to serve as a deterrent to others.”
Meanwhile, PREMIUM TIMES exclusively reported in February that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission has begun an investigation into Mr Nnaji’s certificate forgery scandal.
Insiders had told this newspaper that the former minister could be prosecuted if the investigation shows that he truly forged his credentials.
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