Nigeria’s federal government has barred recipients of honorary degrees from prefixing “Dr” to their names in official, academic or professional use, moving to shut down a practice it says has blurred the line between symbolic recognition and earned scholarship. Tunji Alausa announced the policy on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, saying anyone who misrepresents an honorary degree as a real academic credential will be treated as committing academic fraud.
The Federal Executive Council approved a uniform policy for the award and use of honorary degrees by Nigerian universities, limiting them to four honorary degree types: Doctor of Laws, Doctor of Letters, Doctor of Science and Doctor of Humanities. The reforms took effect on April 20, after the council’s approval, and universities now have to seek clearance from the National Universities Commission before making an award. The commission will also vet proposed recipients before any degree is conferred.
Alausa said the policy was meant to end years of indiscriminate conferment of honorary degrees for political patronage and financial gain. “The recent trend we’ve seen with the award of honorary degrees has revealed a growing abuse and politicisation of this academic privilege,” he said. He added: “We’ve seen awards being used for political patronage, for financial gain, as well as the conferral of awards on serving public officials, which, as part of the ethics of honorary degree awards, should not happen.”
Under the new rules, every honorary degree certificate and every reference to it must carry the words “honorary” or “Honoris Causa.” Universities without active PhD-awarding programmes are barred from conferring honorary degrees at all, and those that ignore the policy face sanctions. Alausa said: “Any university that is not offering PhDs cannot award honorary doctorate degrees. Doing so will amount to a violation of the law, and there will be consequences, including sanctions against the vice chancellor,” while people who falsely claim such awards “can be prosecuted.”
The crackdown lands after years of criticism over the commercialisation of honorary degrees in Nigeria, with concerns raised since at least 2012, when the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities tried to address the issue in what became known as the Keffi Declaration. The government also said some newer universities had been conferring honorary doctorates despite being less than five years old and lacking postgraduate research programmes, a practice officials say helped weaken the credibility of the awards. The policy was approved alongside a second memo establishing a National Research and Innovation Development Fund.
For universities, the message is now plain: honorary degrees remain permissible, but only inside a narrower box, and only after federal vetting. For recipients, the answer is just as clear — an honorary title is not a doctorate, and from here on the government says anyone who pretends otherwise risks both reputational damage and prosecution.
