President Bola Tinubu’s government has labelled Nigerians who obtained fake certificates from foreign institutions as criminals, vowing to flush them out of the system.

Minister of education, Tahir Mamman, in an interview with Channels TV on Wednesday, disclosed this in the wake of an investigation by Daily Nigeria exposing how Benin Republic University sold a degree certificate to its undercover reporter who never attended the school.

Berating Nigerians parading fake certificates from foreign universities, Mr Mamman said, “students who patronise foreign institutions to procure degrees are not victims. They are criminals. I have no sympathy for such people. Instead, they are part of the criminal chain that should be arrested.”

Asked what Mr Tinubu’s government will do to Nigerians with fake foreign certificates working in government institutions, Mr Mamman said, “If, along the line, we can trace that there are people already in the system. For instance, if a particular institution or operator has been operating, say, in the last 10 years, we will check if we can get records of Nigerians who attended that institution.

“Once we do that, they are criminals and you know there is no timeframe to criminality. We will trace them. As long as we can lay our hands on their institutions and they are right here with us, certainly, the security agencies will go after them because they are criminals, Mr Mamman said.

In response to Daily Nigerian’s investigation, the federal government has suspended accreditation of certificates from two francophone universities.

Mr Mamman said, “we are not going to stop at just Benin and Togo. We are going to extend the dragnet to countries like Uganda, Kenya, even Niger here where such institutions have been set up.”

The threat to arrest and flush out Nigerians with fake certificates from foreign universities by Mr Mamman comes despite lingering controversies on Mr Tinubu’s Chicago State University certificate.

Though the Supreme Court rejected fresh evidence on Mr Tinubu’s certificate forgery scandal to affirm his electoral victory, the issues have continued to elicit reactions from Nigerians.