Before Kila There Was Ikejiani: NOP NIGERIA Digs Out First Certificate Scandal in Nigeria’s University History

● How Politics Triumphed Over Merit: The Nnamdi Azikiwe’s intervention that made Wole Soyinka Revolt and Resign from University College Ibadan, now UI, in the 1950s

Before Anthony Kila, there was Okechukwu Ikejiani. Before the fake Jean Monnet Professor, there was a fake Doctor of Science. Before MCIU in 2026, there was University College Ibadan in the 1950s.

Nigeria’s first certificate scandal did not happen in a mushroom polytechnic. It happened in the best — the Great University College Ibadan, the crown jewel of British colonial education, now the University of Ibadan.

Sometime in the 1950s, the gown town was rocked. It was discovered that one of its lecturers, Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani, was parading fake academic credentials. He claimed to have a D.Sc — Doctor of Science — from a foreign country. It was a lie. A big, bold, foreign-stamped lie.

Professor Ayo Ojebode of the University of Ibadan said that this story is public as he confirmed in a chat with NOP NIGERIA.

“The discovery led to tension, shame, and outrage on campus,” he said.

The man who stood before students to teach truth was teaching with a falsehood. He was either sacked or he fled in the night, humiliated, his gown torn by his own deceit.

That should have been the end. In any sane system, it would have been the end. But Nigeria was about to write a different ending.

President Nnamdi Azikiwe, Zik of Africa himself, intervened. In a move that stunned the academic community, Azikiwe appointed the same Ikejiani — the disgraced lecturer with the fake D.Sc — as Chairman of the Governing Council of the same University College Ibadan he had just disgraced.

Imagine that for a second. Someone shamefully unqualified to be a staff in a place is now the boss of the place. Someone who escaped in the night out of humiliation is now to chair the highest governing body. The man who could not be employed as a lecturer became the defacto employer of all lecturers, including those who exposed him.

It was the ultimate triumph of politics over merit, of patronage over parchment.

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All protests fell on deaf ears. Petitions were written. Senior professors lobbied. Students murmured. Zik would not budge. Ikejiani served as Chair of UI Council — then known as UCI — sitting at the head of the table, supervising the university he had conned.

That brazen injustice was too much for one young man. A brilliant, principled, hot-blooded lecturer in the Department of English named Wole Soyinka.

Angered by this scandal, Soyinka revolted. He resigned from University College Ibadan in 1961. It was not a quiet resignation. It was a principled revolt against a system that would reward fraud and punish integrity. The future Nobel Laureate walked away from Nigeria’s premier university because a fake doctor was made its chairman.

Soyinka’s resignation was a warning Nigeria refused to heed.

Now fast-forward 65 years. Anthony Kila sits as Pro-Chancellor — Chairman of Council — of Michael and Cecilia Ibru University, just as Ikejiani sat as Chairman of Council of Ibadan. Kila claims professorship from ECAPS, Cambridge, a university that does not exist. Ikejiani claimed http://D.Sc from a foreign country that never gave him one. Kila claims Jean Monnet Professor. Ikejiani claimed Doctor of Science.

PREMIUM TIMES asked the European agency in charge of Jean Monnet. Their answer: he was never a coordinator. The European Centre for Advanced Studies said: we don’t know him. The UK Companies House has no trace of his ECAPS. History is rhyming.

The difference? In 1961, a Soyinka resigned. In 2026, MCIU’s spokesperson told PREMIUM TIMES: “We don’t debate issues. You can go up with whatever you are going up with.”

Before Kila, there was Ikejiani. And unless Nigeria learns from Soyinka’s 1961 revolt, after Kila, there will be another.

NOP NIGERIA