The Fake Professor Leading Michael and Cecilia Ibru University

A Premium Times investigation has established that Anthony Kila, the pro-chancellor of Michael and Cecilia Ibru University (MCIU), was never awarded the professorial title he has claimed publicly for years.

Mr Kila, who was appointed to the MCIU post in August 2025, has built a public persona around the description “Jean Monnet Professor of Strategy and Development”. A long list of academic profiles presents him as a well-educated and widely travelled jurist, professor, scholar, accomplished professional, author and public commentator of repute.

A pro-chancellor chairs the governing council of every Nigerian university. That council is charged with the general control and supervision of the institution’s administration, policy implementation, finance and assets.

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Mr Kila has granted numerous interviews to Nigerian newspapers and television stations, where he is routinely addressed as “professor”. Some publications describe him as a professor of political science, while others use the Jean Monnet title. The investigation found both are made up.

The newspaper’s findings show that no recognised academic institution has ever conferred a professorial title on him.

The investigation also found that his profiles on the MCIU and CIAPS websites carry suspicious academic qualifications and roles used to embellish his academic standing, raising questions about his other academic qualifications.

Claimed professorship traced to a non-existent institution

Asked about the claim, Mr Kila told Premium Times that the European Centre for Advanced and Professional Studies (ECAPS) awarded him the professorship. The newspaper found that the institution does not exist and appears only in his profile.

When Premium Times presented its findings to MCIU, a spokesperson said the university has no evidence that Mr Kila is not a professor as he claimed.

The newspaper had approached Thomas Kolo, a former Registrar at MCIU, to request an interview with the university’s spokesperson. Mr Kolo passed the phone to a man who identified himself as the spokesperson but did not give his name.

“We don’t debate issues. You can go up with whatever you are going up with. If there’s a need to respond, we will respond when we see the article,” the spokesperson said.

‘Fake Professor’

In Nigerian universities, as globally, the professorial rank is the highest academic title conferred on researchers and educators. The newspaper found no evidence that Mr Kila had ever held a teaching post at a university, in Nigeria or overseas, or that any institution conferred the title on him.

Mr Kila told Premium Times that ECAPS, based in Cambridge in the United Kingdom, awarded him the professorship in 2016. The newspaper, however, found that the institution exists nowhere except in his profiles.

Searches of the UK Companies House and Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), along with a general online search, produced no leads — no website, social media handles, address or alumni of the claimed institution.

Mr Kila also claimed that ECAPS made him a “Jean Monnet professor of Strategy and Development”.

The title “Jean Monnet Professor” is associated with the European Union’s Jean Monnet Actions, a programme established to promote teaching, research and debate on European Union integration.

Premium Times contacted the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), which administers the programme, to establish his status.

In its response, the Jean Monnet team said Mr Kila does not appear as a Jean Monnet project coordinator for any project, based on information accessible in its directory.

“In other words, within the period for which coordinator data are publicly available, Mr Kila has not been listed as holding the role of Jean Monnet project coordinator since 2015,” the agency said.

The newspaper also contacted Jean-Marc Trouille, a professor and co-chair of the AfriquEurope Jean Monnet Network, who is also Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on the EU and Regional Integration in the East African Community. Mr Trouille described Mr Kila’s status regarding the programme as “highly unlikely”.

“First, I think it is highly unlikely that Prof. Kila would hold a Jean Monnet Chair award,” he wrote to our reporter in an email.

Mr Trouille said he searched for Jean Monnet activity involving Mr Kila and found that the only Jean Monnet module in Nigeria he was aware of was at the University of Lagos, where Mr Kila did not appear on the team.

Mr Kila also confirmed to the newspaper that he was not associated with the Jean Monnet actions, but he failed to explain how he began to refer to himself as a “Jean Monnet professor.”

How the rank is earned

The professorial rank is attained through promotion within a university. According to the National Universities Commission (NUC), which regulates Nigerian universities, the minimum standard for attaining it considers a candidate’s academic qualifications, teaching and research experience, publications, postgraduate supervision and contribution to knowledge.

“The first level qualification is to have a doctorate in the area of specialisation,” the NUC said.

The commission added that a candidate must spend at least three years in teaching, research and community service at each of the ranks of Lecturer II, Lecturer I, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor — meaning roughly 12 years of university teaching and research experience would typically precede consideration for a professorship.

Ahmad Galadima, a professor and former Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University Gusau (FUGUS), explained that a candidate’s academic achievements are first evaluated at the departmental level through the faculty, then by the university promotion committee.

Those assessments cover publications, teaching load, quality of teaching, administrative experience, community service and relationships with colleagues. The CVs are then sent to three high-ranking professors in the candidate’s area of expertise for “external assessment”.

“When the requirements are fully satisfied, their CVs are sent for external assessment,” Mr Galadima told Premium Times. “Two positive responses are required to promote the staff to the rank.”

In other countries such as the United Kingdom, he said, the procedure is more stringent.

“Additional requirements like research grants acquired and quality of journal papers considered are top,” he added.

No evidence emerged, however, that Mr Kila taught at any university or published in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

His Google Scholar page listed 22 works, including books, journal articles, book chapters and other works, but Premium Times found that nine of the 22 records were not authored by Mr Kila.

Of the works actually attributed to him, none could be independently established from the review as a peer-reviewed article in a reputable academic journal. Three entries are listed as published in the CIAPS Journal, a publication associated with an organisation he created.

His ResearchGate profile, where he identified himself as a “full professor”, listed no publications.

Non-existent institutions and shifting academic claims

Mr Kila’s public biographies repeatedly describe him as an international Director of Studies at the non-existent “European Centre of Advanced and Professional Studies”.

The European Centre for Advanced Studies (ECAS), the institution closest in name to his so-called ECAPS, was established by the University of Glasgow and Leuphana University. It says it has no connection to him.

“The European Centre for Advanced Studies has no knowledge of this person (Mr Kila),” its Academic Director, James Conroy, told Premium Times in an email.

Although Mr Kila’s profiles do not state exactly which schools he attended, they list several qualifications, including LLM, MBA, MSc, PhD and PGCE.

“Anthony studied in Cambridge, London, Perugia, and Suffolk. He graduated with a first-class degree in political economy and later specialised in political anthropology. He has taught in various colleges and universities in Cambridge, Ipswich, Lecce, London, Perugia, and Siena,” his profile reads.

Premium Times sought his comprehensive Curriculum Vitae, which would have detailed the institutions he attended, the qualifications he obtained, his academic career and where he obtained his professorship.

Mr Kila initially said he did not have a CV readily available because he was no longer a young professional who needed one regularly.

“I don’t really have a CV handy,” he said in a message to our reporter. “I will find time to send you something.”

He subsequently supplied a list of his academic qualifications. He said he earned a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Classic Studies from Università per Stranieri, Italy, in 1989, followed by a Master of Arts in European Studies from the same institution in 1991.

He listed a Postgraduate Diploma in Media and Communication from the University of Essex in 1992 and a Master of Science in International Banking and Finance from City University London in 1994.

According to the list, he obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in Political Economy from the University of Perugia in 1997 and a Master of Business Administration from Aston University, Birmingham, in 2002.

He also claimed a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education from Cambridge in 2006 and a Master of Laws from Cambridge in 2009.

Those claims, however, contradicted his CIAPS website profiles, where he portrayed himself as having graduated with a first-class degree in political economy before specialising in political anthropology — a claim repeated on the MCIU website.

In a brief resume he shared with our reporter, he told a different story again, saying his first degree was in Classical Studies from Università per Stranieri, Perugia, Italy. That claim is still being investigated.

The CIAPS website, through which Mr Kila made several suspicious claims about himself and his business, was unreachable in the past few days, after our reporter confronted him with the findings. It was repeatedly edited, with his misleading profile initially removed before the site was eventually taken offline.

The newspaper is continuing its investigations into the academic qualifications Mr Kila claims. The verification process has been slow because responses are still awaited from some of the institutions he said he attended, but the investigation has clearly established his fake professorship.