It is widely recognized that honorary doctorates in many African contexts have frequently been dispensed indiscriminately, often in exchange for financial contributions or political favors…
By FAROOQ A. KPEROGI
On May 30, 2025, Ghana’s Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) issued what it termed a “final caution” against individuals, especially politicians, entrepreneurs, and other public figures whose vanity drives them to flaunt honorary doctorates and professorships as though these titles had been academically earned.
“The Commission will henceforth take legal action against individuals found flouting these directives, alongside publicly naming and shaming them,” GTEC said in a statement signed by Professor Augustine Ocloo, the Commission’s Acting Deputy Director-General.
Ghana’s commendable stance follows Malawi’s National Council for Higher Education, which, on March 27, 2025, categorically stated that honorary doctorates and professorships confer no entitlement to use the titles “Dr.” or “Prof.” in personal or professional contexts.
According to Malawi’s council, honorary degrees are ceremonial recognitions that are markedly distinct from academic qualifications, and recipients should refrain from using these titles as personal prefixes.
The concerns raised by Ghana and Malawi echo earlier decisions in Nigeria. At their 27th conference, held at Nasarawa State University, Keffi, in September 2012, the Association of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities adopted the “Keffi Declaration,” which significantly tightened guidelines for honorary awards.
Central to this declaration was a prohibition on awarding honorary doctorates to serving elected or appointed government officials. They said such conferrals must recognize genuine contributions to scholarship and societal advancement rather than political influence or wealth.
The Keffi Declaration also placed stringent conditions on awarding honorary doctorates. Notably, institutions without established doctoral programs were barred from conferring honorary degrees, and even qualified institutions were restricted to awarding a maximum of three honorary doctorates annually.
Arguably the declaration’s most contested provision, however, was its insistence that recipients of honorary degrees must not prefix their names with “Dr.” In a country with titular obsession like Nigeria, I knew that guideline would be observed in the breach because it has no force of authority.
But such collective measures represent significant progress toward remedying the degradation of academic culture across various African nations, where honorary degrees have increasingly become symbols of wealth and political clout rather than scholarly achievement.
It is widely recognized that honorary doctorates in many African contexts have frequently been dispensed indiscriminately, often in exchange for financial contributions or political favors rather than scholarly or societal merit.
Indeed with a few honorable exceptions, most of the people who receive honorary doctorates are the kinds of people Chinua Achebe, in his memoir There Was a Country, famously characterized as “politicians with plenty of money but very low IQs.”