The Federal Government has officially banned recipients of honorary degrees from using the prefix “Dr.” in official, academic, or professional contexts.
Announcing the decision following a Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, stated that the move is designed to curb the “decades of indiscriminate conferment” of academic titles for political patronage or financial gain.
Under the new policy, any misrepresentation of an honorary award as an earned academic credential will now be treated as academic fraud, carrying significant legal and reputational consequences.
To restore the integrity of the Nigerian ivory tower, the government has introduced a uniform policy mandating that honorary titles be listed as suffixes rather than prefixes.
For example, recipients must now use formats such as “Chief Louis Clark, D.Lit. (Honoris Causa)” instead of “Dr. Louis Clark.” Furthermore, the FEC has restricted honorary awards to only four specific categories—Laws, Letters, Science, and Humanities—and barred any university without an active PhD-awarding program from conferring such honors.
Minister Alausa emphasized that this crackdown gives legal “teeth” to previous attempts at reform, such as the 2012 Keffi Declaration, which lacked executive backing and was largely ignored by institutions.
To ensure strict compliance, the National Universities Commission (NUC) will monitor convocation ceremonies and publish an annual list of legitimate recipients. The Ministry of Education also plans to collaborate with the media to discourage the improper attribution of academic titles to honorary awardees in public discourse.
In a simultaneous boost to the nation’s academic and scientific sectors, the Federal Government announced the establishment of the National Research and Development Fund.
This landmark initiative will see an annual allocation of $500 million dedicated to fostering home-grown innovation.
Alausa noted that while Nigeria possesses immense talent in research, the sector has suffered from years of systemic neglect, a trend the current administration aims to reverse through this substantial financial commitment.
President Bola Tinubu was commended by the Ministry for taking these “bold steps” to safeguard the sanctity of higher education while providing the resources necessary for global competitiveness.
The Education Minister concluded that the dual approach of enforcing academic discipline and providing robust research funding would ultimately benefit the nation’s institutions of higher learning and ensure that earned doctoral degrees retain their prestige and value.
