Ex-VCs, Others Laud Tinubu, Alausa on NERD’s Digitisation Initiative
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
Leading educationists, including former vice chancellors, have praised the federal government on its giant strides with the digitisation programme at the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD).
This is coming as the October 6 deadline for the enforcement of the regulations for the Nigeria NERD programme, which have been described as transformational, approaches.
Former Vice Chancellor of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi, Prof Abubakar Sambo, in a chat with newsmen, on the sidelines of a NERD stakeholders meeting in Abuja, commended the current administration for the significant steps to eliminate the recurring evil of education rackets, fake certificates, and the festering for-profit honour scams.
Sambo, who once served as the Director General of the Energy Commission, applauded the incumbent Education Minister, Dr. Tunji Alausa, for his decisiveness in implementing the NERD scheme, especially the thesis digitisation and anti-certificate racketeering components of the programme, as well as the National Publication Indexing System for researchers.
“There is no responsible country in the world that will allow the integrity of its educational system to be crippled by doubts and refuse to provide the tools to guide the public and the industry. I am glad that the President appreciates the enormity of the problem. There are just too many hardworking Nigerians over the ages who deservedly earned their honours.
“At least, the nation must put systems in place to protect the sanctity of academic honours from being corrupted by a few bad eggs. Even liberal societies like the United States of America will ensure there are clear ways to separate proper educational experience from the activities of degree mills.
“Hence, deploying the NERD’s computerised digital submissions and credential verification system as an academic progression watchdog is timely and commendable. Every sector needs sanity checks,” he said.
Sambo, who is the incumbent Commissioner for Education in Kaduna State, fadded that “not being a partaker over the past century constitutes a significant development impairment for African nations, because academic publishing not tethered to an African agenda would only promote 21st-century neo-colonialism”.
Besides, Haruna Abdullahi, an energy expert and Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Federal University Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State, described NERD as a “game changer” and that the new indexing service creates an “alternative for academics that can match the best globally and be acceptable for promotion and other career-related objectives”.
First female Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Prof. Adenike Adeniji, who spoke at a NERD stakeholders meeting in Abuja, stated that she hoped that the NERD programme “kicks start immediately”, stating that “this is something that we all have been expecting.
“ It should have happened a long time ago, but now that we are in it, there should be no delay again. I think at this time, we are getting it right,” she said.
Former Vice Chancellor of the Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba Akoko, Prof. Igbekele Ajibefun, who is the incumbent Commissioner for Education in Ondo State, described the NERD Programme as ranking “among the most important reforms in the education sector since 1999.”
Ajibefun, who had earlier commended the Minister of Education, Alausa, for the NERD Programme, added that “NERD sends a clear message to education stakeholders, administrators, lecturers, students, institutions, and corporate businesses alike that Nigeria values education integrity – it values its intellectual capital, and that the President is ready to champion the process.”
The Executive Director of Cybersecurity and Programme Communication for the NERD programme, Haula Galadima, recently confirmed that the various schemes on the NERD programme were ready and awaiting flag off.
She implored members of the public and, in particular, the academic community to acquaint themselves with the services on the NERD information portal at https://ned.gov.ng and enrol their focal persons at https://ned.gov.ng/onboarding in compliance with the directives of the Federal Government.
The NERD programme is a special federation intervention programme that was approved by the Tinubu-led Federal Executive Council (FEC) in February 2025.
