The police in Enugu State have questioned Chukwunonye Okereke, a media consultant to Uche Nnaji, a former Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology. This questioning is over claims of criminal defamation against Oguejiofo Ujam, a former Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).
Sources say Mr Okereke spent hours being interrogated by police investigators on Monday. He is accused of saying that Mr Ujam, a professor, worked with the former PDP-led government in Enugu State to claim that Mr Nnaji forged his UNN degree certificate.
Mr Okereke was questioned at the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) in Enugu. This follows a petition Mr Ujam submitted to the police.
The petition, dated 19 May 2026 and acknowledged the next day, was addressed to the Commissioner of Police in Enugu State, Bitrus Giwa. Mr Ujam claims that Mr Okereke “criminally defamed” him on 7 October 2025 during a defense of Mr Nnaji’s certificate forgery case on Channels TV’s Politics Today.
Defence of Nnaji’s Certificate Forgery Case
Remember that Mr Okereke appeared on the TV show defending Mr Nnaji after a detailed investigation by PREMIUM TIMES in October last year. This investigation found that Mr Nnaji submitted forged UNN degree and NYSC certificates to President Bola Tinubu and the Nigerian Senate for his ministerial confirmation in 2023.
Mr Ujam served as UNN’s vice-chancellor from February to August 2025 and had stepped down by the time of the TV program. Since then, Simon Ortuanya, a professor, has taken over as the vice-chancellor of the university.
Political Background
For context, Enugu State Governor Peter Mbah was in the PDP when he won the governorship election on 18 March 2023. Mr Nnaji, on the other hand, was in the All Progressives Congress (APC) but lost the same election.
Both Mbah and Nnaji have been political rivals. In October 2025, Mbah switched from the PDP to the APC. Recently, Mr Nnaji moved to the PDP faction supported by Minister Nyesom Wike, where he became the 2027 governorship candidate for that faction.
Allegations of Defamation on the TV Show
In the monitored TV program, Mr Okereke claimed that the scandal concerning Mr Nnaji’s degree was politically motivated. He suggested that Governor Mbah was behind the forgery claims against Mr Nnaji.
Mr Okereke stated that UNN was “an arm of the PDP” and mentioned that Mr Ujam was the former chairman of the PDP group at UNN. He accused both Mr Ujam and Mr Ortuanya of conspiring to label Mr Nnaji’s degree certificate as forged.
Channels TV shared a video clip of the program on its YouTube channel on 7 October 2027. In the clip, Mr Okereke said, “We have the PDP chapter of the University of Nigeria Nsukka, where the former chairman (of the PDP) was a former Acting Vice-Chancellor (of UNN), Prof Ujam and the present Chairman of the PDP chapter (in UNN) is the politically anointed Vice-Chancellor, Prof Simon Ortuanya.”
He further claimed that Mr Ujam acted as the “returning officer for PDP” in Nkanu East Local Government Area during the 2023 governorship election and was rewarded with the acting vice-chancellorship.
PREMIUM TIMES checked this and found that political parties in Nigeria, including the PDP, cannot have anyone officially designated as “returning officer” in elections. Only the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) assigns returning officers in local government areas, who are also called collation officers.
Political parties can only have one representative known as “party agents” in polling units during elections. Investigations by this newspaper showed that a Computer Science lecturer from UNN, Ogbene Nnaemeka, was the returning officer for Nkanu East during the election.
In his petition, Mr Ujam stated that he was appointed acting vice-chancellor of UNN “on merit” by President Tinubu through the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa. He said the discussion on Channels TV had nothing to do with him since he had left office.
“The discourse had nothing to do with me as the erstwhile acting vice-chancellor, but Hon. Chukwunonye Okereke deliberately used the opportunity to drag my name into the discourse just to damage my reputation,” he said.
He added that President Tinubu, who appointed him as acting vice-chancellor, had been in the APC. Mr Okereke accused him of working as a PDP returning officer during the 2023 election in Nkanu East LGA.
“Hon. Chukwunonye Okereke knew this fact very well and the fact that I was never a returning officer for PDP in Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu State. But he chose to injure my reputation and expose me to public hatred,” he stated.
He said since the defamatory statement was made, he has not had peace of mind, receiving calls from friends and associates about it. He asked the police commissioner to help him and ensure justice is served.
AI Claims
Reports say some police operatives tried to arrest Mr Okereke in late May, but he asked for more time because of PDP primaries at the time. He later went to the police SCID office on Monday with his lawyer.
Sources say he denied defaming Mr Ujam. When shown the video clip, he claimed it was generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Possible Charges
Sources told PREMIUM TIMES that Mr Okereke will be called back to police investigators soon. This is part of plans to prepare charges against him in court.
The police seem set to charge him despite his denials. Investigators think his AI claim is just an attempt to distract from the issue since the Channels TV video is clear.
Background
In October 2023, PREMIUM TIMES started looking into Mr Nnaji’s academic records. The former minister submitted a degree and NYSC certificates to President Tinubu and the Senate during his ministerial confirmation in 2023. He claimed to have obtained a degree certificate from UNN, where he said he graduated in 1985.
Feeling the heat from this scrutiny, Mr Nnaji filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja to stop UNN and its vice-chancellor, Simon Ortuanya, from releasing his academic records.
Along with UNN and its vice-chancellor, the Minister of Education, the National Universities Commission, the university’s registrar, Mr Ujam, and the Senate of UNN were also listed as defendants.
Recently, he applied for an out-of-court settlement. Before he could get a court injunction, Mr Ortuanya had responded to PREMIUM TIMES’ Freedom of Information (FOI) letter, confirming that Mr Nnaji had forged his degree certificate.
The UNN registrar later verified that Mr Nnaji was admitted in 1981 but never graduated or got any certificate.
NYSC authorities also rejected the discharge certificate that Mr Nnaji had, in response to a separate FOI request from PREMIUM TIMES.
Mr Nnaji resigned three days after the investigation was published. Many Nigerians have called for his prosecution, saying his resignation isn’t enough due to his violations of Nigerian laws.
Earlier this year, lawyer Liborous Oshoma criticized the government for not prosecuting Mr Nnaji. He insisted that people like him should be prosecuted and banned from public office as a warning to others.
Despite this investigation, Mr Nnaji is still aiming to be governor of Enugu State in 2027. He is under investigation for certificate forgery by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
PREMIUM TIMES reported in February about the ICPC looking into Mr Nnaji’s forgery scandal. Sources say he could be prosecuted if the investigation proves he forged his credentials.
In March, this newspaper also reported that an investigative panel by Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Mr Alausa, found that Mr Nnaji indeed forged his degree and NYSC certificates.
Drop your comment
No comments yet — be the first to drop the gist 👇