An investigation panel set up by Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has praised the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Simon Ortuanya, and a former Acting Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Oguejiofor Ujam, for exposing the then-Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji’s certificate forgery. The seven-member investigative panel was constituted on 23 November 2025 in response to Mr Nnaji’s petition to the education minister, following a painstaking two-year investigation published by PREMIUM TIMES earlier in October last year, which revealed that the then-minister forged his university degree and NYSC certificates. The panel submitted its investigative report to the education minister in December 2025. PREMIUM TIMES obtained the report exclusively after months of searching for it. The petition and setting up of the panel In the petition dated 14 October 2025, Mr Nnaji alleged unethical disclosure, document tampering, and political manipulation of his academic records by senior UNN officials. The former minister also accused the UNN Vice-Chancellor, Mr Ortuanya, a professor, and a former Acting Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Mr Ujam, also a professor, of “issuing forged or unauthorised correspondence, improperly accessing his academic file, and facilitating media publications that misrepresented his academic history.” Mr Nnaji alleged that Mr Ortuanya’s response to PREMIUM TIMES’ Freedom of Information (FOI) Request—in which the vice-chancellor confirmed that the then-minister did not graduate from the institution or receive a university degree certificate—constituted an unauthorised disclosure of his confidential academic data.” The former minister particularly raised concerns about whether the vice-chancellor exercised due process, followed proper approval channels, and complied with internal controls governing record confidentiality, and whether any political or external influences shaped the issuance of the correspondence to PREMIUM TIMES. The panel, set up to investigate the allegations, was chaired by Rakiya Gambo Ilyasu, the director of the University Education Department in the ministry. James Ocheido, the deputy director of the department in the ministry, served as its secretary. Members of the panel included Ejeh Ejeh. A. U, the director of Polytechnics and Allied Institutions Department in the ministry; the director of the ministry’s Colleges of Education Department, U. C. Uba; and Mohammed Ayuba, a representative of the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC). The Director of Human Resources Unit of the education ministry, Yusuf Saeed, and his counterpart in the ministry’s Legal Services Unit, Foluso Akinlonu, were also panel members. The panel stated it adopted “documentary review, interviews, verification, and technical audit as its methodological approach” in the investigation. It said during the investigation, members physically visited UNN, engaged with the institution’s officials—including its vice-chancellor and former acting vice-chancellor—and reviewed necessary documents and the university records. The UNN officials interviewed during the investigation were the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ortuanya; a former Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ujam; the Registrar, Celine Nnebedum; Records Unit officials; and other staff members involved in handling academic records. The panel said that during the investigation, it also accessed and inspected Mr Nnaji’s academic files and internal correspondence – including the 2023 and 2025 letters issued by UNN. It added that it examined UNN’s historic academic records, registry movement logs, Senate lists, convocation archives, electronic access logs, and other relevant documentation, including Mr Nnaji’s transcript request, as well as the verification of the provenance and authenticity of letters issued by the university to media organisations and government agencies. “The members of the panel arrived (UNN) in Nsukka on Sunday, being 23rd November, 2025. On Monday, 24th November, the panel paid a courtesy visit to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Simon Ortuanya and availed him with the purpose of the visit and proceeded to the venue the university provided for panel to use,” the report stated. What the panel found on Nnaji’s allegations The panel found that contrary to Mr Nnaji’s claims, Mr Ortuanya’s response to PREMIUM TIMES’ FOI request “followed a documented internal approval workflow” after seeking legal advice from the director of legal unit who informed the vice-chancellor that he was legally mandated to respond to this newspaper’s request in line with the FOI Act 2011. “There is no evidence of external directives, political influence, unauthorised inputs, or bypassing of procedural steps. The approval process complied with internal procedures, FOI obligations, and legal advice. All steps were documented and traceable,” the panel said. It also said there was no evidence that the “internal drafts” or the vice-chancellor’s response to PREMIUM TIMES were leaked or altered or that the documents were “transmitted outside statutory procedures.” “The letter reached Premium Times through a formal, lawful FOI transmission and not through any unauthorised or clandestine channel,” it stated. “Therefore, (the transmission) does not constitute a breach of confidentiality.” Praise for VC, ex-acting VC Recall that, on 21 December 2023, the university registrar, Ms Nnebedum, falsely informed Peoples Gazette newspaper that Mr Nnaji graduated from the institution in July 1985. Mrs Nnebedum was responding to the newspaper’s enquiry about the then-minister’s academic records. However, in response to another enquiry from the Public Complaints Commission on the matter, the registrar recanted via a letter dated 23 May 2025. In the letter, she told the commission that the university searched its graduation records for the 1985 session but could not find Mr Nnaji’s name. Mr Ujam was the acting vice-chancellor of UNN when the institution responded to the Public Complaints Commission’s request, while Mr Ortuanya, who took over as the university’s vice-chancellor in August 2025, responded to the PREMIUM TIMES enquiry in October of that year. Meanwhile, the federal government’s panel praised Messrs Ujam and Ortuanya for helping to expose the former minister’s certificate forgery and “correcting the inconsistency” in the “two contradictory letters” from the UNN official. “These two officers should be commended for their dogged ability to protect the truth of restoring the dignity of man, which is the motto of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka,” the panel said of Messrs Ujam and Ortuanya. More findings PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that the panel also confirmed that Mr Nnaji indeed forged his UNN degree certificate. The probe panel stated in the report that it conducted “a thorough review of the Senate-approved graduation list of 1985 and the personal student file” of Mr Nnaji and found, among other things, that his name was not in the 1985 graduation list. It stressed that it obtained “several correspondences” dated from 8 November 1985 to 19 May 1986 between Mr Nnaji and the university’s Registry Department regarding his failed course MCB 431 – Virology, which were documented from pages 55 to 69 of the former minister’s personal file. According to the report, Mr Nnaji, in his handwritten correspondence dated 19 May 1986 and titled “Application to take course, 431AB in September,” explained that he could not write the exam scheduled for 21 April 1986 due to ill health, and attached a supporting medical report. “The panel was unable to find any record of him (Nnaji) having taken the failed course,” the report read. The panel then wondered how Mr Nnaji obtained the “purported certificate of graduation” dated July 1985, which he submitted to President Bola Tinubu for appointment and to the National Assembly for his ministerial confirmation. The panel’s findings on Mr Nnaji align completely with this newspaper’s report, which exposed the then-minister’s criminal and unethical certificate forgery. Background In October 2023, PREMIUM TIMES began an investigation into Mr Nnaji’s academic records. The then-minister had submitted a degree and NYSC certificates to President Bola Tinubu and the Nigerian Senate during his ministerial confirmation in 2023. He had claimed that he obtained the degree certificate from UNN, where he claimed to have graduated from in 1985. Apparently disturbed by the scrutiny, Mr Nnaji filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja to block both UNN and its vice-chancellor, Mr Ortuanya, from releasing his academic records. Apart from the UNN and its vice-chancellor, the minister of education, the NUC, the university’s registrar, a former UNN Acting Vice-Chancellor, Mr Ujam, and the Senate of the university were listed as defendants in the suit. But before the minister filed the suit, Mr Ortuanya had responded to PREMIUM TIMES’ FOI letter in which he confirmed that Mr Nnaji forged his UNN degree certificate. The UNN registrar would, shortly after, corroborate Mr Ortuanya’s position, indicating that although Mr Nnaji was admitted into the university in 1981, he neither graduated nor was issued any certificate. NYSC authorities, in response to a separate FOI letter from PREMIUM TIMES, had disowned the discharge certificate in the then-minister’s possession. Mr Nnaji resigned from his position as minister three days after this newspaper published the investigation exposing how he forged his degree and NYSC certificates. Many Nigerians called for Mr Nnaji’s prosecution, maintaining that his resignation was inadequate given his violations of various Nigerian laws, including the Criminal Code Act. Last week, a legal practitioner, Liborous Oshoma, criticised the Nigerian government for failing to prosecute Mr Nnaji, over the certificate forgery scandal, maintaining that people like the former minister “should be prosecuted and banned from holding public office to serve as a deterrent to others.” PREMIUM TIMES exclusively reported in February that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission had begun an investigation into Mr Nnaji’s certificate forgery scandal. Insiders had told this newspaper that the former minister could be prosecuted if the investigation shows that he truly forged his credentials.