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Peter Obi has warned that defending unverified academic credentials for political reasons could erode Nigeria’s standards and create a dangerous precedent in leadership.
The former presidential candidate, in a statement, said the issue should not be reduced to the identity of the person involved, but treated as a question of accountability, verification and the standards expected of people holding public office.
Obi said excusing questionable academic credentials because they belong to political allies could eventually undermine trust in professional qualifications across the country.
“A nation that tolerates unverified academic credentials at any level of leadership, regardless of who is involved, risks destroying the very standards upon which a society is built,” he said.
“The issue is not about an individual. It is about standards, accountability, and the values we choose to pass on to the next generation.”
He urged Nigerians to reject what he described as the normalisation of “blurred, missing, questionable, or unverified credentials,” regardless of political affiliation.
He argued that the process through which individuals attain positions of responsibility was as important as their performance once in office.
“The process through which people attain positions of responsibility matters greatly. How we get into leadership is as important as what we do with leadership,” he said.
Obi warned that failure to uphold basic verification standards could eventually extend beyond politics to critical professions.
“If we normalise the abandonment of basic verification today, tomorrow we may have professors who never attended a university, doctors who never studied medicine, and judges who never studied law,” he said.
“That is the dangerous precedent we must never allow.”
The statement follows renewed public debate over the academic credentials of a prominent political figure, although Obi did not name any individual in his remarks.
He said Nigeria should not allow political interests to override standards and accountability.
“Nigeria cannot sacrifice its future on the altar of today’s transactional politics,” Obi said.
He called for a society where truth and accountability were applied without regard to political allegiance.
“We must build a society where truth is not partisan, standards are not negotiable, and accountability applies equally to everyone,” he said.
Obi added that history would judge Nigerians by the principles they defended, rather than merely by the political figures they supported.
“History will judge us not only by those we defended, but by the principles we were willing to defend,” he said.
“We must choose truth over convenience, standards over sentiments, and the future over political expediency.”
He concluded that achieving what he described as a “New Nigeria” would require citizens to uphold the right principles even when doing so was politically inconvenient.
“A New Nigeria is possible, but only if we are willing to do the right thing, even when it is inconvenient,” he said.
By Making Excuses for Unverified Certificates, We Are Planting Poison in the Soul of Our Society
A nation that tolerates unverified academic credentials at any level of leadership, regardless of who is involved, risks destroying the very standards upon which a society is built.…
— Peter Obi (@PeterObi) August 11, 2026
