The President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in the Republic of Benin, Okechukwu Favour, has appealed to the President Bola Tinubu-led Nigerian government to have a rethink on the blanket ban on certificates and degrees from higher institutions in the country.

Favour, who also appeared on a Channels TV programme on Thursday, said the fate of over 15,000 Nigerian students in Benin Republic is hanging in the balance.

AdelekeREPORTERS had on Tuesday reported that the Nigerian government announced the suspension of evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from the Benin Republic and Togo.

This was contained in a statement on Tuesday, January 2, signed by Augustina Obilor-Duru on behalf of the Director Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of Education.

The decision had followed an investigative report which exposed how “some Nigerians deploy nefarious means and unconscionable methods to get a Degree with the end objective of getting graduate job opportunities for which they are not qualified.”

But speaking, the NANS president, Favour, on Thursday pleaded, “We have over 15,000 Nigerians studying in that country alone. The ban will affect legitimate students who are at various levels of their studies. We are not saying the government should not punish anybody who has engaged in criminal acts, but it is not in all the universities that such a thing is happening.

Also, it is not all the students that are involved in such terrible acts. While one agrees that the undercover reporter has helped to expose some misdeeds, he also breached certain conventions in the process. Our appeal is that let the guilty ones be punished, spare the innocent,” he stated.

The National Youth Service Corps Scheme, NYSC, also explained how the undercover reporter, who had earlier been mobilised for the compulsory one-year programme in 2019 was mobilised for the same programme in 2023.

The Director of Public Affairs, NYSC, Mr Eddy Megwa, said the reporter changed his email address and phone number to be drafted again into the scheme.

“It is not that we don’t have checks and balances in place to detect possible breaches of the system. When the undercover reporter first put in his data, the system rejected him because he had served in the scheme before. He later changed his email address and his phone number which made the system to accept him. And he was initially posted to Osun State.

“He did that because he was out for a particular purpose. We are looking at the situation and ensure that it does not happen again. We don’t have a database of graduates to serve in the scheme. We only rely on the lists sent to us by the Senates of the various universities, stating the number of graduates to expect from them,” he said.