Weeks after a series of WikkiTimes investigations raised serious questions about the authenticity of the doctorate claimed by Bauchi State governorship candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Yakubu Adamu has removed the PhD from the academic qualifications he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), now listing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) as his highest qualification.
Documents filed with INEC show that Adamu declared only his First School Leaving Certificate, Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) certificate and MBA in Management, with no mention of the Doctor of Philosophy degree he had previously used publicly.
The omission follows an extensive WikkiTimes investigation that scrutinised the doctorate Adamu claimed to have obtained from the International University of Bamenda (IUB), Cameroon.
The first investigation revealed that Cameroon’s higher education authorities do not authorise private universities, including IUB, to train or award doctoral degrees. It further reported that the institution had been sanctioned by Cameroonian regulators and that Adamu’s thesis was reportedly supervised by a non-teaching bursary official and completed within about 40 days.
Subsequent investigations challenged the defence mounted by Adamu’s supporters, who cited IUB’s purported international partnerships as proof of its credibility. WikkiTimes established that the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Chartered College of Teaching in London both denied having any affiliation or partnership with IUB. The investigation also found that Cardinal Stritch University, another institution listed as a partner, had closed in 2023, while American Central University, also cited by IUB, was an unaccredited institution linked by United States regulators to a diploma mill.
In another follow-up report, the National Universities Commission (NUC) informed WikkiTimes that the International University of Bamenda was not among the approved foreign universities on the Commission’s records and clarified that verification of foreign institutions falls outside its mandate.
Against the backdrop of these findings, Adamu has now excluded the controversial doctorate from the credentials submitted to Nigeria’s electoral commission, listing only his primary school certificate, SSCE and MBA in Management as his academic qualifications.
As of the time of filing this report, efforts to obtain Adamu’s reaction to the omission of the PhD from his INEC records were unsuccessful.
Editor’s Note: Read the first, second and third stories here , here and here. This story was produced with support from the WikkiTimes Media Foundation and Civic Media Lab.
