By Danjuma Amodu
In a decisive move to curb the proliferation and bastardisation of academic titles, the Federal Government has barred recipients of honorary degrees from using the prefix “Dr” in official, academic or professional settings, saying the practice distorts academic credentials and undermines public confidence in earned qualifications.
The announcement was made on Wednesday by the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, during a briefing at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. He said the Federal Executive Council had approved a new national policy to regulate the award and use of honorary degrees across Nigerian universities, following years of concern over their commercialisation and politicisation.
Alausa, who was joined by the Minister of State for Education, Suwaiba Ahmad, said the policy was designed to end decades of indiscriminate conferment of honorary doctorates for political patronage and financial gain. He criticised the growing practice of awarding such degrees to serving public officials, describing it as contrary to established academic ethics.
Under the new framework, honorary degree holders may no longer prefix “Dr” to their names. Instead, they must place the honorary designation after their full name, for example “Chief Louis Clark, http://D.Lit. (Honoris Causa)” or “Mrs Miriam Adamu, LL.D. (Hons).”
“Recipients shall not prefix ‘doctor’ to their names in official, academic or professional usage,” Alausa stated. He added that any attempt to present an honorary award as an earned academic qualification would now be treated as academic fraud and could attract legal and reputational consequences.
The policy also limits universities to four recognised categories of honorary degrees: Doctor of Laws (LL.D), Doctor of Letters (D.Lit), Doctor of Science (D.Sc) and Doctor of Humanities (D.Arts). Institutions without active PhD-awarding programmes are barred from conferring honorary doctorates, a measure aimed at stopping the trend among newly established universities with no postgraduate research capacity.
All honorary degree certificates must explicitly include the words “honorary” or “Honoris Causa”, the minister said.
For years, Nigeria’s academic community has raised alarm over the commercialisation of honorary degrees, with universities frequently accused of awarding them to wealthy donors and politicians in exchange for patronage rather than merit. While the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities issued the Keffi Declaration in 2012 to set guiding principles, Alausa noted that it lacked legal authority and was therefore unenforceable.
“That is why we brought this to the Federal Executive Council, which now gives it legal and executive backing,” he said.
The Federal Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission will issue circulars to vice-chancellors, registrars and governing councils to ensure compliance. Convocation ceremonies will be monitored, and the ministry plans to publish an annual list of legitimate honorary degree recipients.
Alausa stressed that the National Universities Commission has the statutory mandate to enforce the policy and uphold the integrity of academic titles in Nigeria.
