By Haruna Mohammed Salisu
Cameroon’s regulators say no private institution may train students at doctoral level. The man Adamu names as his thesis supervisor appears in the university’s own records as a student.
Yakubu Adamu, the Bauchi State governorship candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), who served as a commissioner in the Bauchi State government, presents himself as a holder of a Doctor of Philosophy. He uses the title “Dr” and says he earned the degree in 2020 from the International University of Bamenda, a private institution in Cameroon. Adamu always introduces himself as ‘Dr. Yakubu Adamu PhD’—a redundant doubling.
The International University of Bamenda, the Cameroonian institution Adamu says awarded his degree, has never been authorised by Cameroon to train students at doctoral level. It was not authorised in 2020 when his thesis is dated, as shown in the government’s own approval records and in an April 2026 communiqué from Cameroon’s Ministry of Higher Education.
The university’s secretary, Mary Fusi, said the institution has no satellite campuses in Nigeria and that any college awarding degrees in its name does so without approval.
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She said the institution does “not have anything to do with Nigeria,” and that “whoever is doing so is doing so at his or her own risk.”
Mary Fusi, who WikkiTimes understands is the daughter of the late Patrick Chefu Fusi, the founder of the university, said in a telephone interview that the institution had issued a formal disclaimer years ago. Mary said copies were sent to “the Youth Council in Nigeria, to the Nigerian Consulate, to the Ministry of Education in Nigeria, to the Ministry of Higher Education here in our country,” adding that IUB wanted no satellite campus in Nigeria. She said students who came to her claiming to have been admitted through a Nigerian centre were told plainly they were scammed.
She said students who came to her claiming admission through a Nigerian centre were told plainly that they were being scammed. She described a prospective student who said his friends were already studying at an IUB centre in Nigeria. She told him they were being deceived. “He never followed up,” she said. “Some of them are comfortable to be duped.”
But the records contradicting her are published by the university itself. IUB’s own website carries an alumni roster that is overwhelmingly Nigerian, listing serving and former officials of Bauchi State institutions by name, position and registration number. The thesis Yakubu Adamu submitted in 2020 records her late father, Patrick Chefu Fusi — the university’s founder and the promoter named on its government approval documents — as its external examiner. And the man Adamu names as his supervisor appears on the same roster not as a supervisor but as a doctoral student.
WikkiTimes’ checks on the MINESUP registry, the official Cameroonian government database of accredited private institutions, found two approval orders for the university: a creation order No. 11/00507/MINESUP/SG/DDES dated 5 October 2011, and an opening authorization No. 12/0363/MINESUP dated 17 August 2012. None of the approvals allows for Master’s and PhDs. The institution’s authorisation never covered doctoral training in 2011, 2012, and June 2020, when Adamu’s thesis was submitted. No version of the university’s licence has ever permitted the degree he holds. The approval document lists Patrick Chefu Fusi as the institution’s promoter and includes the same telephone number that WikkiTimes used to contact Mary Fusi.
Furthermore, on June 1st, Cameroon’s regulator for private higher education told WikkiTimes that no private institution in the country is permitted to award doctoral degrees.
Gabriel Djankou Nkuissi, National Executive Secretary of the National Association of Private Higher Education Institutions of Cameroon (ANIPES), told WikkiTimes in writing:
“Even before any verification, which would only confirm the principle, no private higher-education institution is to date authorised to train at the PhD level. The IUB is a recognised private higher-education institution, authorised to operate in Cameroon. But it cannot train at the doctoral level, nor host doctoral training.”
In a press release dated 13 April 2026, signed by the Minister of State for Higher Education, Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo, the Ministry of Higher Education, known by its French abbreviation MINESUP, said no private higher-education institution in Cameroon is authorised to deliver training at the doctorate level. The Ministry said no “offshore” doctoral programme is authorised anywhere on Cameroonian territory, and that certificates resulting from such programmes cannot be recognised in Cameroon. The International University of Bamenda is a private institution. Under the ministry’s rule, a private doctorate awarded in Cameroon is not recognised.
A Registered Institution, Closed by Cameroon’s Regulator
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National Commission for Private Higher Education, known by its abbreviation CNESP, has sanctioned the International University of Bamenda. On 28 August 2024, the Commission closed its 30th session by sanctioning nine private institutions, in a communiqué signed by Fame Ndongo. The International University of Bamenda was one of them.
Cameroon Tribune, the state-owned daily, reported on 3 September 2024 that the university was sanctioned for the “issuance of false diplomas and the refusal to compensate a learner,” and was closed for three years. The Guardian Post, an English-language Cameroonian newspaper, reported the same action on 5 September 2024, citing similar reasons. The closure took effect in 2024.
Yakubu Adamu’s Thesis’s Abstract Matched a Project Sold Online
Yakubu Adamu has not published his complete thesis anywhere. Rather, he published an abstract and redacted the rest of the thesis, saying, “the contents of the thesis is for internal use only.”
The dissertation’s abstract submitted under Adamu’s name matches a study found on a commercial platform that sells theses and dissertations to students online. The thesis, titled “The Impact of Risk Management on Organizational Efficiency: A Case Study of Plateau State Inland Revenue Service, Jos, Nigeria,” was submitted to the International University of Bamenda in June 2020. WikkiTimes uses two separate plagiarism checks–Turnitin and Copyleaks to examine Adamu’s thesis abstract. On one check, the abstract returned a similarity score of up to 91, 86 and another 91 per cent in three instances. On another check, it returned a similarity score of 64 percent.
WikkiTimes notes that similarity scores alone do not constitute a finding of plagiarism. Turnitin, the world’s leading academic integrity platform, states explicitly that “the relationship between a similarity score and plagiarism is often misunderstood,” adding that “many assume that a high similarity score automatically signifies plagiarism, but that is not always the case,” and that “determining whether plagiarism has occurred requires more than looking at the score.” The scores documented by WikkiTimes — ranging from 64 to 91 per cent across multiple checks of the dissertation’s abstract — are presented as indicators warranting further scrutiny, not as a conclusive determination of misconduct.
WikkiTimes formally requested access to Adamu’s full, unredacted thesis to allow for a complete and fair assessment of the work beyond its abstract. Adamu did not respond.
A substantial part of his abstract matches a pre-written research project on the same subject — risk management and organisational efficiency, applied to a different organisation, Dunlop Nigeria Plc — sold to students on the commercial website projectclue.com.
