Claim: Dino Melaye, the governorship candidate of Peoples Democratic in the November 11 off-cycle election in Kogi state made a claim that aside from Ekiti state, Kogi state has the highest number of professors in the country.
Verdict: This is UNPROVEN

Background:

Dino Melaye, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Kogi state, Senator Dino Melaye has claimed that the state has the second highest number of professors in Nigeria, with only Ekiti state ahead of Kogi.

Speaking in an interview with Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ on the state of the educational sector in Kogi State, the former senator maintained that the resources the state has are not commensurate with the progress the state has made under the current administration of Yahaya Bello.

Describing the educational sector in Kogi state as moribund, Dino Melaye boasted that he would turn the situation around when he emerged victorious in the state. “Education is the bane of our development as a people. We are going to work on it. We are going to introduce ICT. We are going to work on the curriculum from primary school to our universities.”

“Following our efforts to boost the economy, our next focus will be on education. As of today, apart from Ekiti State, we have the highest number of professors in the country, yet our universities resemble glorified secondary schools. Today, there are no functioning primary schools in Kogi State and no teachers”, he mentioned.

As one of the main contestants in the election and a notable figure in the upcoming election, iVerify was prompted to check the veracity of the claim made by Senator Melaye
 

Verification:

To fact-check the claim made by Dino Melaye, iVerify did a keyword search on the claim. Also, a further check was done by visiting the National Universities Commission (NUC) website, to ascertain the names of Professors in Nigeria and their states of origin in order to determine which state of the country has the highest number of professors in the country.
 

However, there was no publication from a reliable source to establish the claim made by Senator Dino Melaye, as the data published by statista in 2021 gave the total number of professors in the country as 11, 877 as of 2019. The data does not give their states of origin.

Subsequent checks into the NUC website’s content revealed that the commission had published a list of Nigerian professors by 2021; however, the list only consists of the professors’ names and does not specify their states of origin.

Consequently, there is no sufficient evidence to validate or invalidate the claim made by Senator Melaye at the time of this report.
 

Conclusion

The iVerify came to a conclusion that the claim by Dino Melaye in an interview with Channels Television on Politics Today, saying asides from Ekiti state, Kogi state has the highest number of professors in the country is UNPROVEN.