The Federal Government has banned recipients of honorary degrees from prefixing “Dr” to their names in official, academic, or professional usage, declaring that the use of the title by such recipients constitutes a misrepresentation of academic credentials.
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, while briefing State House correspondents on Federal Executive Council approvals.
Alausa said the FEC approved a uniform policy for the award and use of honorary degrees by Nigerian universities, designed to end what he described as decades of indiscriminate conferral of 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. We’ve seen awards being used for political patronage, for financial gain, as well as the conferral of awards on serving public officials, which should not happen,” Alausa said.
Under the new policy, recipients of honorary degrees may no longer put “Dr” before their names. Instead, they must cite the full honorary designation after their name. For example, recipients can use “Chief Louis Clark, D.Lit.” or “Mrs Miriam Adamu, LL.D. Hons.”
“Recipients shall not prefix doctor to their names in official, academic or professional usage,” the minister said, adding that misrepresentation of honorary degrees as earned academic credentials shall be considered academic fraud and subject to legal and reputational consequences.
The policy also restricts the types of honorary degrees Nigerian universities can confer to four: Doctor of Laws, Doctor of Letters, Doctor of Science, and Doctor of Humanities. It further bars universities without active PhD-awarding programmes from conferring honorary degrees at all.
Alausa noted that the Federal Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission will issue a circular to all vice-chancellors, registrars, and governing councils, and convocation programmes will be monitored for compliance. The government will also publish annually a list of legitimate honorary degree recipients to protect the integrity of earned academic qualifications.
