The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission and the Director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought have called on Nigerian universities to take decisive action against academic corruption, warning that the crisis has eroded the value of Nigerian certificates and degrees.

Both officials spoke on Thursday at an African anti corruption programme held at the University of Abuja, now known as Yakubu Gowon University.

Director Sam Amadi said the Nigerian educational system had lost its credibility, citing the promotion of lecturers to professorial positions without merit as a key symptom of institutional decay.

"So the fact that we can't trust the point of education, the fact that we can't even trust the quality of our professors. So they become professors without going through the rigour and the proper standard. So essentially, it is just fitting the system; it creates a sense of entitlement, it creates a sense in which people don't care about rules, and also creates a sense in which people don't care about production. That's a major cause of loss of value in Nigeria," he said.

Amadi urged universities to enforce rigorous staff recruitment and disciplinary processes, pursue stronger sanctions against sexual harassment and sex for grades, and dismantle what he described as a military based institutional structure that rewards mediocrity over excellence.

ICPC Chairman Musa Aliyu, represented by the commission's Director of Public Education, Demola Bakare, said corruption weakens public trust and denies Nigerians developmental opportunities, urging citizens to rally against academic corruption in all its forms.

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja, Prof Hakeem Fawehinmi, represented by Deputy Vice Chancellor Administration Prof Mohammed Ndagi, warned that academic corruption deserves the same level of public scrutiny as financial and political corruption.

"Our educational institutions should not be able to produce graduates; they should produce responsible citizens," he said.

Justice Olamide Oloyede of the Osun State High Court and member of the Board of Trustees of the African Initiative Against Corruption and Examination Malpractice added that examination malpractice had continued to damage Nigeria's reputation internationally, and called for a recalibration of the country's national identity.