Opinion

Farooq Kperogi : The new Pope is “black,” now what?

Published

1 year ago

May 10, 2025

Farooq Kperogi : The new Pope is “black,” now what?

In the aftermath of Pope Francis’ death, many Africans on the continent and in the diaspora wondered if the Catholic Church would, for a change, elect a Black Pope. Well, they got one in Pope Leo XIV even if this isn’t apparent on the surface.

Although the Pope doesn’t identify as Black, he has Black African bloodline flowing in his veins through his mother.

Robert Francis Prevost, who changed his name to Leo XIV upon becoming the pope, traces maternal ancestral roots to grandparents in the state of Louisiana whose ancestry is part Black African.

According to the New York Times, “The pope’s maternal grandparents, both of whom are described as Black or mulatto in various historical records,” lived in a part of New Orleans, Louisiana’s biggest city, “that is traditionally Catholic and a melting pot of people with African, Caribbean and European roots.”

Records from the 1900 census, the New York Times reports, show that the man who gave birth to the pope’s mother, identified as Joseph Martinez, described his race as “Black” and his birthplace as “Hayti,” the older English spelling for Haiti.

Haitians trace ancestral descent from six major West African ethnic groups: Fon and Ewe from what is now Benin Republic and Togo; Yoruba from what is now Nigeria and Benin Republic; Igbo and Kongo from what is now Nigeria and Central Africa respectively; and Akan from present-day Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.

That means there is a high likelihood that the pope has distant cousins from Nigeria. That won’t be surprising because, as I pointed out in my February 13, 2021, column titled “Surprising American Cousins Through My Mother’s Ancestry,” my own AncestryDNA record, which I initiated with my mother when she visited me from Nigeria between 2017 and 2018, matched us with several phenotypically white distant American cousins.

READ ALSO:

“As we went through the photos of hundreds of distant cousins that AncestryDNA’s matches showed, [my mother] was struck with astonishment to find lily white people as her eight cousins,” I wrote. “She asked how that was possible. I explained to her that in the American South, where most Black people were enslaved, many slavers sexually exploited the enslaved, the consequence of which DNA results are now revealing.”

The new pope’s story is another possible explanation.

It should be noted that the pope’s maternal grandfather obviously also had European, possibly French and Spanish, ancestry in addition to his African ancestry. He was probably so light-skinned that he could pass for a white man outside the United States.

He probably chose to identify as Black only because of America’s strange “one-drop rule,” which held that a person with even the faintest scintilla of Black African blood in his/her pedigree is Black.

As Madison Grant wrote in his unbearably racist book titled The Passing of the Great Race, “The cross between a white man and an Indian is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a negro is a negro; the cross between a white man and a Hindu is a Hindu; and the cross between any of the three European races and a Jew is a Jew.”

In other words, whiteness symbolizes purity, and any other color line that touches it inevitably soils it. So, the American notion of Blackness conceives of it as an inerasable genetic stain on whiteness, so that the remotest ancestral connection with Black Africa defines one as Black.

That is why the legendary three-time heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali whose great-grandfather was an Irishman is celebrated as a Black American. That’s why former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is probably just about 15 percent Black in his gene pool, is celebrated as a Black American success story.

It is why Mariah Carey, who would be called “bature” or “oyinbo” in Nigeria, or “muzungu” in eastern Africa, is accepted by Black America as a Black woman. And that is why it is only in America that a white woman can have Black children, but a Black woman cannot have white children.

READ ALSO:

This preposterous logic, this scandalously hidebound, hopelessly essentialist notion of Blackness would make most Europeans “Black” since recent DNA evidence suggests that about 75 percent of Western and Southern Europeans have vestiges of African blood in them.

In the eighteenth century, a German physician and anthropologist by the name of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, on the basis of his flawed analysis of human skulls, taxonomized the human family into five races: Caucasian or white race, Mongolian or yellow race, Malayan or brown race, Negroid or black race, and American or red race.

This arbitrary division of the human family is often fingered as the foundation for scientific racism. It was used by eighteenth-century American judges as the intellectual and moral basis for the promulgation of so-called anti-miscegenation laws (laws that forbade interracial marriage or interracial sex) in a misguided bid to police racial boundaries.

One of the reasons interracial marriages were frowned upon by advocates of racial purism was that mixed-raced children disrupted the easy certainties of Blumenbach’s simplistic racial taxonomy.

As Yale University professor of history Glenda Gilmore once noted, interracial liaisons “resulted in mixed race progeny who slipped back and forth across the color line and defied social control.”

The pope’s maternal grandmother was Creole, who are descendants of the racial alchemy between French, Spanish, and African ancestors but who are nonetheless categorized as “Black” in the United State because of the (il)logic of the one-drop rule. Famous American musicians with Louisiana Creole heritage are Beyonce (through her mother) and Prince.

Creoles can be so light-skinned that they can pass for white. Throughout the nearly two years I lived in Louisiana, I often had difficulty telling a white person from a Black person. People I considered unambiguously white took offense when I identified them as such; they would tell me they were “Black.”

READ ALSO:

On other occasions, however, people I thought would self-identify as “Black” based on my previous encounters with seemingly white “Creoles” would take offense when I called them Black. Before I left Louisiana, I stopped guessing or discussing people’s racial identity. Yes, racial identification is that tenuous, that fluid, and that notoriously unstable in southwest Louisiana!

It was unsurprising that the pope’s mother, Mildred Martinez, identified as white. With a light-skinned Black Haitian father and a probably even more light-skinned Creole mother from New Orleans, she most certainly would look phenotypically white.

She chose to escape the chains that Blackness imposed on her and embraced whiteness. In America’s racial terminology, she would be described as having performed “passing.”

Passing is defined as a phenomenon when a phenotypically white but legally Black person (because of traces of African ancestry in them) intentionally present themselves as white to evade racial discrimination and gain access to social, economic, or legal advantages in a racially stratified society where white people occupy the upper end of the totem pole.

During the Jim Crow era in southern United States, when segregation and anti-Black laws were codified in the law books, “passing” was often a survival strategy for light-skinned Black people who could physically blend into white society. I have no doubt that that was what happened with the pope’s mother.

John Joseph Prevost, the pope’s brother, told the New York Times that they don’t discuss their mother’s Black heritage. “It was never an issue,” he said. In fact, USA Today and many American newspapers describe the pope’s mother’s heritage as “Spanish.” The African part of her rich racial tapestry is elided.

The New York Times reported on the pope’s maternal African heritage only because a Black New Orleans genealogist by the name of Jari C. Honora unearthed it with powerfully compelling documentary evidence and shared it with the paper.

Well, going by America’s peculiar logic of racial classification, the pope is “Black” because his whiteness is mediated by the invisible, imperceptible, maybe even genetically negligible, but nonetheless undeniable Black African blood coursing through his papal veins.

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.

Farooq Kperogi : The new Pope is “black,” now what?

Opinion

IGP Disu: Inside the rotting walls of Zone II

Published

14 hours ago

May 22, 2026

Trends Admin

IGP Disu: Inside the rotting walls of Zone II

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, May 22, 2026)

Except for its motto and morality, there is hardly anything wrong with the Nigeria Police Force. If burnished in the furnace of grammar, the statement, “Police is your friend,” which is the motto of the Nigeria Police, is wrong because ‘police’ is a plural noun, and so, cannot legally coexist with ‘is’, a singular tense. Therefore, to put the motto in the right grammatical drive, the statement should read, “The police are your friend(s).” Aside from the test of grammar, the motto also fails the test of authenticity because, as everyone knows, the Nigeria Police Force is friendless and loveless.

But this wasn’t the fate of the force some 40 years ago when I walked into the Okigwe police station, stranded and needing a place to lay my head for the night. Early in the day, before the second crow of cock, I had boarded ‘The Young Shall Grow’ bus from Lagos en route to Okigwe, the home of Imo State University, where I had just been admitted.

It was a mobileless era when a letter sent by post to a distant state travelled like a tortoise with arthritis, crawling for weeks or months before reaching its destination. As soon as I got my admission letter from JAMB, I headed eastwards, afraid of missing the registration window and ultimately forfeiting my admission. The Lagos Liaison Office of the school had no information because it was on recess. Quickly, I borrowed the wisdom in a Yoruba proverb that says: “Kí ojú má rí’bi, gbogbo ara ni ògun ẹ̀’. Translated: “For the eyes not to see evil, the whole of the body must be agile.” So, I hit Oshodi, boarded a bus, and moved agilely to Okigwe.

However, Nigeria happened on the road.

Head of Zone II, Assistant Inspector-General Moshood Jimoh

Due to mechanical delays and a poor road network, the bus didn’t reach Okigwe until late in the night when the whole town was in bed, except the dingy police station. Though I was a lad who had never travelled outside the south-west and spoke not a syllable of Igbo, I knew police stations across the country were a place of refuge and fortress. I knew the Nigerian police, in a good measure, embodied the spirit of service and protection.

Similarly, “To protect and to serve” is the spirit behind the motto of police departments across the United States. But somewhere along Nigeria’s broken national journey, the Nigeria Police Force lost its spirit, service, and protection.

The reasons for this monumental loss are clear to the blind eye. With a numerical strength of 371,800 officers and men, the police-to-citizen ratio in Nigeria is about one police officer to every 637 citizens, which falls short of the United Nations’ recommendation of one cop to 430 persons. To attain the UN benchmark, experts say the country’s police force must hit between 650,000 and 684,000. A force starved of funding, adequate welfare, modern technology, equity and fairness cannot produce saints in uniform.

READ ALSO:

The officer on duty that night in Okigwe was courteous but pitiable. I introduced myself and showed him my admission letter. He wondered why someone would leave Lagos for Okigwe. “Uhmm! My brother, you can see di way we dey here o. NEPA don take light. If you fit manage for dat place till morning; day go soon break,” he pointed to a concrete slab that was about to be my king-size bed. But providence had a deal lined up for me. As I sat on the slab, contemplating how I was going to sleep, a man in mufti walked in, spoke with the policeman on duty, and went to rummage through a chest of drawers at the back of the counter. He was a policeman. On his way out, he stopped and shot a glance at the man on duty, asking with his eyes who I was. “The boy na student of IMSU. He no know say di school never resume, and na from Lagos im come. He wan sleep here till morning.”

The man in mufti spoke Igbo to me. I smiled and told him I didn’t understand Igbo.

“So, you bi Yoruba from Lagos?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ha!” Why you come suffer come dis far? Why you no stay for Lagos or Ibadan?”

“I have spent all my life in Lagos and wanted a change.”

“Hia! Mosquitoes go chop you finish for dis station o. If you no mind, you fit come and manage with me till morning. Day go soon break.”

Though I felt safe in the station, I couldn’t bring myself to reject the Good Samaritan’s offer. So, we both left the station in a pall of darkness and headed to his abode, which was a stone’s throw away. As we made our way through bush paths to his house, I asked if there was a watering hole where we could have some beer. “All of dem don close. Okigwe dy sleepy once university no dey session,” he said, and added, “You dey hungry? I no get food for house o,” smiling. I told him I was hungry. So, we went to a house where he knocked on the door, and a sleepy woman opened the door and sold us bread, moin-moin and soda, which I paid for. On the way to his house, I fished a packet of Consulate cigarettes out of my pocket, the policeman whistled in admiration and said, “You bi original Lagos boy!”

Darkness escorted us to his house, which looked like an abandoned poultry shed. “This is where I dey manage o,” he said in a welcome. The house was built with corrugated iron, with holes that let in the rays of the moon through cracks. He showed me his mattressless king-size bed. “I go sleep on the floor,” he said, “You fit sleep on the bed.” It was a large-hearted moment of benevolence, and I was deeply moved. I spread my clothes over the naked springs, lay down and pretended to sleep, peeping at the sky through the cracks in the roof, silently asking God if He could see what I was going through. I prayed silently that I may succeed in my academic journey in the land of the rising sun.

At dawn, he showed me his bathroom – if courtesy permits me to call it a bathroom. Four sticks rammed into the earth, wrapped with palm fronds, roofless and doorless. In that jacuzzi, the heavens watched your nakedness while passersby viewed your legs as your towel or wrapper served as a door. I took my bath with the brown water my benefactor provided and headed to the school to see things for myself, offering profuse thanks for the memorable accommodation.

That was the situation of the police force 40 years ago: poor, neglected, unpaid – yet still recognisably human. Today, the situation has not changed, the motto has not changed, but the morality and purpose of the force have changed drastically. Today, poverty remains, but humanity has fled. The bloodstream of the police has been infected. Police stations are no longer safe for the police and the citizens.

READ ALSO:

I have encountered one thousand and one ugly police experiences bordering on corruption, impunity, wickedness and opportunism. I can’t mention all, but the sheer devilry behind police actions was shocking. One was when my uncle, Abel Odesola, was killed on the Ife-Ilesa Expressway by a drunk driver in an accident in 2005, and the police at Atakumosa police station demanded a bribe from my family before they could release his corpse. I refused to pay the bribe and got my uncle’s corpse out. Another was when a team of policemen arrested me in the Ajegunle area of Osogbo, took me to the station for standing up to their impunity. On the way to the station, they told the eldest among them to lie that I slapped him. Little did they know that I was recording all our exchanges on the way to the station. The Osun Commissioner of Police threatened to sack them, and I had to beg on their behalf.

Now, age has tempered my intolerance of police impunity. Today, I often resist the temptation to escalate police misconduct on the pages of newspapers because I understand the internal mechanics of the force. The recklessness of a corporal can stain the career of a commissioner. One scandal can trigger a chain reaction. So, I often let things slide.

This was exactly what happened two years ago when officers made unprofessional demands of me at the Zone II Command Headquarters of the NPF, Onikan. I declined to comply but let it slide. This was after I went upstairs and complained to one of their bosses. I knew if I went to the press with the unprofessional actions of the junior officers, the embarrassment would travel upwards.

Thunder struck the same spot early again this year when I took a case of fraud to the notorious Zone II Zonal Command Headquarters, Onikan. It took PUNCH authorities to call the IG’s office to complain about the actions of the officers of the zone before the case could even be listed for investigation. The immediate past leadership of the zone appeared disturbingly indifferent, maybe deliberately so, for some reasons best known to it.

In a petition I wrote to the command on December 11, 2025, I complained about a suspected fraudster named Wole, who fraudulently obtained $8,800 from me during the process of helping him to buy a 2014 Toyota 4Runner from the US. The criminal suspect had lied to me that he was working with Dangote Refineries and repeatedly assured me repayment was guaranteed. This was in 2022. When I realised the suspect had no job, I personally helped him secure job opportunities, including two banking jobs and an accounting position with a major newspaper in the country.

The suspect turned all the jobs down, citing flimsy excuses.

READ ALSO:

That was when it finally dawned on me that the suspect was playing games. So, I gave him an eight-month deadline, warning that I would initiate legal actions if he failed to pay me by November 2025. When he failed to pay, I wrote a petition to Zone II, titled “Re: Fraudulent Obtainment of $8,88,” which was received and signed by the zone on December 11, 2025. Wole wrote an undertaking at the zone that he would pay me the equivalent of N500,000 in dollars every month. He only paid for January, February and March. Efforts to get the zone to reach Wole had been futile as excuses tumbled down from Onikan, with the investigating police officer, Mrs Priscilla Erroim, telling me that the suspect was not picking up her calls, while he cruised the streets in the silver-coloured Toyota 4Runner with number plate LSD 388 HS.

I had thought that when an officer goes on transfer, the cases they were handling would be transferred to another officer. More so, the suspect included his residential address in the undertaking. This was not the case with Zone II. The case was just left in limbo. At the commencement of the case, I had a very rough time with Erroim, who is a Chief Superintendent of Police, and her subordinate named Francis. But we later resolved the conflict between us.

When I could not make a headway with Erroim and Francis, I called the Zonal PRO, Mr Gbenga Afolayan, a deputy superintendent of police, who said the officers handling the case before they were transferred should tell me who they had handled the case to. Thus, the case ran into a cul-de-sac. But an Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr Ojugbele, distinguished himself by making genuine efforts to intervene.

I had thought that the recent shake-up within the force by the Inspector General was yielding results when I texted the new Head of Zone II, Assistant Inspector-General Moshood Jimoh, who acknowledged my text and promised that the zone would look into the case. I was pleasantly shocked! “Here’s an AIG responding to a random citizen personally, while the former AIG in charge of the zone wouldn’t respond,” I thought to myself. The Nigeria Police Force is working!

I acknowledged Jimoh’s prompt response in my article published in THE PUNCH on Friday, May 15, 2026, titled, “IG’s deployments and the rebirth of Zone II.” The article was published under another article, “Adeleke: Crime cannot dethrone Apetu and enthrone Oluwo.”

How wrong was I! Little did I know that what appeared to attract Jimoh to respond to my texts was not duty, but the allure of my foreign telephone number. Or, how do I explain that calls and texts to him after I introduced myself and made the publication were ignored? It left me wondering what manner of service and protection the common man gets from the police force if a columnist with the most widely read newspaper in the country could be tossed up and down by officers?

As it happened to me two years ago at Zone II, Onikan, so it has happened to me again this year: officers deliberately erect obstacles before citizens, preparing the ground for exploitation. I’m sure the shake-up initiated within the force by the IG is part of ongoing reforms aimed at re-energising the force. But for men and officers of Zone II, Onikan, this reform is like water bouncing off a rock. The IG must break that rock; otherwise, his efforts would go down the drain.

There is no nobler honour than for men and women to put their lives on the line for the safety of their country. This is why I spare no effort in commending the nation’s security agencies whenever they do right. But when corruption takes the place of conscience, then the walls of police institutions begin to rot from within.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

…

Opinion

Understanding Ahmad Gumi Controversy and Nigeria’s Security Power Structure

Published

3 days ago

May 19, 2026

Trends Admin

Understanding Ahmad Gumi Controversy and Nigeria’s Security Power Structure

By Mudashir “Dipo” Teniola

The conversation did not begin with Sheikh Ahmad Gumi. Like many discussions about Nigeria’s worsening insecurity, it started with another painful story — the abduction and killing of a schoolteacher in Oyo State. Frustration filled the room like thick harmattan dust before someone shifted the mood with a pointed remark:

“But this Gumi sef, despite everything, he’s still moving freely.”

That single sentence captured a deeper national confusion: how can a cleric repeatedly associated in public discourse with dialogues involving bandits, kidnappers, and armed groups continue to operate openly while the government’s response appears cautious and restrained?

To ask that question is not necessarily to defend or condemn Ahmad Gumi. Rather, it is to move beyond headlines and confront the complicated realities of Nigeria’s power structure — a system shaped by history, institutional relationships, religion, military culture, and elite influence.

Why Public Outrage Feels Understandable

Many Nigerians, especially in Southern Nigeria and among Northern Christian communities, react strongly to Gumi because their anger is rooted in lived trauma.

They remember the violence that plagued the Kaduna–Birnin Gwari corridor, the March 2022 Abuja–Kaduna train attack that left passengers kidnapped for months, and the repeated mass abductions in Zamfara and other northern states that normalised ransom negotiations and deepened public fear.

During some of the country’s darkest moments, Gumi’s visits to forest camps, his advocacy for negotiation alongside military action, and comments interpreted by critics as sympathetic to bandits generated widespread backlash.

For victims and their families, complex political analysis often matters less than justice and safety. Their frustration is therefore legitimate. When many Nigerians ask, “Why is this man still free?” they are expressing accumulated national pain and distrust in state institutions.

READ ALSO:

Still, public anger alone does not fully explain the situation.

Who Ahmad Gumi Is Beyond the Headlines

Public conversations often reduce Gumi to a “controversial cleric,” but his background is far more layered.

He is:

Son of the late Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, one of Northern Nigeria’s most influential Islamic scholars with longstanding ties to the old Ahmadu Bello political establishment.
A trained medical doctor who served in the Nigerian Army Medical Corps and retired with the rank of captain.
An Islamic scholar who furthered his religious studies in Saudi Arabia.

The military aspect of his identity is particularly important in understanding his influence.

In Nigeria, military affiliation often extends beyond active service. Retired officers frequently maintain strong institutional relationships, networks, and influence long after leaving the armed forces. This does not automatically provide immunity, but it can shape how the state approaches sensitive figures connected to security-related matters.

For many within government and security circles, Gumi is not viewed solely as a cleric. He represents a combination of religious authority, elite northern pedigree, and military familiarity — factors that complicate any simplistic interpretation of his role in Nigeria’s security discourse.

Nigeria’s Long History of Negotiating With Armed Groups

Another uncomfortable reality is that Nigeria’s security strategy has rarely relied on military force alone.

Successive governments have, at different times, adopted negotiation or reintegration strategies with violent non-state actors. Examples include:

The Niger Delta Amnesty Programme introduced under late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
Reported backchannel discussions with factions linked to Boko Haram.
Quiet engagement efforts by some northern governors seeking dialogue with armed bandit groups before publicly distancing themselves from such approaches.

Gumi has also claimed in previous interviews that elements within the Nigerian state were aware of, or indirectly involved in, some of his engagements with armed groups.

Whether Nigerians agree with that approach or not, these realities place him within a broader historical pattern of state inconsistency in handling insecurity.

READ ALSO:

That inconsistency partly explains why many citizens struggle to understand why he has not faced harsher official consequences.

Why Many Nigerians Perceive Double Standards

For many observers in Southern Nigeria, comparisons are often drawn between Gumi and separatist figures such as Nnamdi Kanu or Sunday Igboho.

To such critics, the difference in state response reinforces perceptions of ethnic or religious bias within Nigeria’s power structure.

However, reducing the matter solely to religion or ethnicity oversimplifies a more complex system.

In Northern Nigeria, religious authority, military influence, bureaucracy, and political elite networks have historically overlapped in ways that differ from the more fragmented power structures in many southern states.

As a result, when Gumi speaks, some Nigerians hear not just an Islamic cleric but echoes of a broader establishment network with historical institutional influence.

At the same time, dismissing all criticism against him as Islamophobia or anti-Fulani sentiment is equally dishonest. Many citizens genuinely fear that rhetoric perceived as accommodating bandit grievances may unintentionally normalise criminality or deepen the suffering of victims.

The Bigger Lesson for Nigeria

The “Ahmad Gumi phenomenon” is not about mystery or untouchability. It reflects the layered realities of power in Nigeria.

In the country’s political and security landscape, influence is rarely straightforward. Military history, religious authority, elite networks, ethnicity, and institutional memory often intersect in ways outsiders may not immediately understand.

Recognising this complexity does not excuse insecurity, nor does it erase the pain of victims. But it helps explain why figures like Gumi occupy controversial yet enduring spaces within national conversations.

The killing of innocent Nigerians — from abducted teachers to victims of mass kidnappings — demands a more effective security strategy, stronger governance, and reduced tolerance for criminal economies built around ransom and violence.

Nigeria cannot move forward if outrage replaces analysis or if difficult national questions are reduced to simplistic talking points.

Understanding the structures that shape influence in the country is uncomfortable, but necessary. Nigeria is a deeply layered society, and navigating it requires the ability to hold multiple truths at once: anger over violence, awareness of institutional realities, and a commitment to justice without fear or favour.

Only then can the country move beyond endless outrage toward meaningful understanding and lasting solutions.

Understanding Ahmad Gumi Controversy and Nigeria’s Security Power Structure

Opinion

War against Nigeria’s academic title fraud, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

2 weeks ago

May 9, 2026

Trends Admin

Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism

Farooq Kperogi

War against Nigeria’s academic title fraud, By Farooq Kperogi

The federal government’s decision to prohibit recipients of honorary doctorates from prefixing “Dr.” to their names is one of the most unexpectedly sensible things to come from officialdom in a long while. It is a small decision with large symbolic consequences, which strikes at the heart of one of Nigeria’s most ridiculous epidemics: the vulgar worship of titles by vain, title-crazy, empty-headed “big men” and “big women” who use purchased honorary academic garlands to conceal the poverty of their intellect.

For years, I have called attention to this national embarrassment. In my October 13, 2012, column titled “Finally, Some Good News from Our Universities,” I praised the Association of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities for its Keffi Declaration on honorary doctorates.

The declaration had four main resolutions: serving government officials should no longer be awarded honorary doctoral degrees, universities without PhD programs should not award honorary doctorates, honorary degrees should be limited to three a year, and recipients of honorary doctorates should not prefix “Dr.” to their names.

I wrote then that this gladdened my heart because honorary doctoral degrees had become cheap candies tossed at anybody with access to stolen public funds, political influence or obscene wealth. I also wrote that the hardest part to enforce would be the directive forbidding recipients of honorary doctorates from styling themselves “Dr.”

I ended the column by wishing the vice chancellors and the NUC good luck in enforcing the “don’t-call-yourself-a-doctor” declaration because, even then, I knew that the vanity economy in Nigeria was too entrenched to be defeated by a gentleman’s agreement.

I returned to the subject on June 7, 2025, in a column titled “Fight Against Vanity Academic Titles in Africa” and again in a September 27, 2025, column titled: “Rarara: There is No Such Thing as ‘Honorary PhD.’” In the June 7, 2025 column, I commended Ghana and Malawi for confronting this same disease.

Ghana’s Tertiary Education Commission had issued what it called a “final caution” to politicians, businessmen and businesswomen, men and women of God and other public figures to desist from publicly using honorary doctoral and professorial titles. It described the practice as deceitful and unethical, said it dilutes the integrity of higher education and warned that it would name and shame violators and take legal action against them.

READ ALSO:

That was the right tone. Nigeria now needs the same hard-tackle approach.

The new federal directive, announced by the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, gives legal and executive muscle to what the Keffi Declaration lacked. Alausa said the recent trend in the award of honorary degrees revealed “a growing abuse and politicisation of this academic privilege.” He said honorary awards had become instruments of political patronage and financial gain, including the conferral of degrees on serving public officials, which he said should not happen.

He was right. In Nigeria, honorary doctorates have become ceremonial laundering machines for mediocrity. A man can pillage a state treasury, donate a fraction of the loot to a financially desperate university and emerge at convocation as “Dr.”

A politician who cannot compose a sentence in English can be decorated with an honorary doctorate in letters. A businessman whose only contribution to society is predatory proximity to power can become “Dr.” before the sun sets. A pastor or an imam can weaponize congregational awe by adding a fraudulent academic halo to ecclesiastical authority.

The tragedy is that the fraud works. In a country where titles can stand in for thought, the prefix “Dr.” confers instant solemnity on vacuity. It intimidates the unlettered, flatters the insecure and deceives the undiscerning. It allows intellectual lightweights to parade themselves as sages. It turns empty suits into “thought leaders.” It enables barely literate political hustlers to sit in front of television cameras and be introduced with the academic reverence they never earned.

Alausa’s directive, which he says has the backing of the Federal Executive Council, is emphatic that recipients of honorary degrees should not prefix “Dr.” to their names in official, academic or professional usage. They may use the proper post-nominal form after their names, such as D.Lit. (Honoris Causa), LL.D. (Honoris Causa), D.Sc. (Honoris Causa) or D.Arts. (Honoris Causa).

That is the established convention in most serious academic cultures. An honorary doctorate is ceremonial recognition. It is not an earned research degree. It is not a medical qualification. It is not a license to impersonate scholarship.

The NUC’s February 2026 guidelines reinforce this point. The commission said honorary doctorates are non-earned degrees awarded honoris causa to acknowledge distinguished merit, outstanding public service, scholarly impact, creative achievement or significant contributions consistent with the mission of the awarding institution.

READ ALSO:

It also said recipients may use the approved title after their names, though they may not use “Dr.,” which is reserved for holders of earned doctorates and medical professionals. The NUC also barred recipients from using honorary doctorates to practice as scholars, supervise research or oversee academic units.

That is an important clarification because Nigeria’s title maniacs do not stop at social vanity. They convert symbolic recognition into institutional fraud. Some use honorary doctorates to join university governing councils as if they were scholars. Some supervise intellectual work they cannot understand. Some convert fraudulent professorships and honorary doctorates into political capital. The distinction between honor and qualification disappears.

Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Ahmad, supplied the missing link between 2012 and 2026. The Keffi Declaration, she explained, was originally a guide developed by vice chancellors, but it had no legal backing. The new federal approval gives it authoritative backing and makes implementation possible. That is the difference between wish and policy.

Still, policy without enforcement is mere decorative “grammar,” as we like to say in moments of joviality in Nigeria. But we do know that our country is a graveyard of beautifully phrased directives. If the government is serious, enforcement must begin immediately and publicly.

First, the Federal Ministry of Education and the NUC should issue a gazetted directive to all universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, ministries, departments, agencies, state governments, professional bodies, media houses and corporate institutions. The directive should make clear that honorary doctorate recipients cannot be addressed as “Dr.” in official correspondence, convocation brochures, government documents, event programs, university publications or institutional websites.

Second, the NUC should create a searchable national registry of honorary doctorate recipients. Each entry should include the recipient’s name, awarding institution, year of award, approved post-nominal title and a prominent warning that the award does not entitle the recipient to use “Dr.” This registry should be updated annually, as Alausa has proposed. It should also identify universities that violate the rules.

Third, every university should be required to send the names of proposed honorary degree recipients to the NUC before convocation. No pre-clearance, no award. A university that awards an honorary doctorate to a serving public official, exceeds the permitted number or fails to orient recipients on proper title usage should lose the right to award honorary degrees for a fixed period.

Fourth, the NUC should adopt Ghana’s name-and-shame method. There should be a public list of offenders: “Mr. X, recipient of an honorary LL.D. from Y University, continues to fraudulently use Dr. in official communication.”

Nigerians fear public disgrace more than they fear rules. Ghana understands this cultural psychology. Its Tertiary Education Commission did not merely whisper disapproval. It threatened legal action and public exposure. That is how to deal with vanity addicts. Soft persuasion will not cure people who have converted self-inflation into an identity.

Fifth, the media must be recruited as an enforcement partner. Alausa already hinted at this. Newspapers, television stations and online platforms should adopt a style rule that forbids the use of “Dr.” for honorary degree holders. When a politician sends a press statement as “Dr. So-and-So,” editors should strip the title. Television anchors should refuse to introduce honorary degree holders as doctors. News reports should use their earned titles or plain names.

Sixth, government institutions should reject documents that misrepresent honorary degrees as earned credentials. Nomination forms, procurement documents, board appointments, conference programs and official biographies should require credential accuracy. Anyone who lists an honorary doctorate as an earned doctorate should be treated as having made a false claim.

Seventh, the Corporate Affairs Commission, INEC and professional licensing bodies should update their templates to distinguish earned degrees from honorary awards. If a candidate’s public profile says “Dr.,” the source of the doctorate should be declared. If it is honorary, the prefix should be removed.

This might seem like pettifoggery. It is not. It is intellectual hygiene. Academic titles exist because they signify arduous training, disciplined research and certified expertise. When politicians with more money than mind rent those titles from compromised institutions, they degrade the labor of people who spent years earning them.

Nigeria has tolerated too many counterfeit majesties. We have fake prophets, fake patriots, fake democrats, fake philanthropists and now fake doctors. The federal government has made the right move. The harder task is to make the move bite.

Without Ghana-style public humiliation, legal consequences and institutional refusal to dignify fraudulent prefixes, Nigeria’s vanity doctors will continue to swagger through public life with borrowed feathers. The country should strip them of the feathers. Let them answer their fathers’ names.