Fake Rankings from Nigeria?

Although the Webometrics rankings, based mainly on web activities, receive little attention from the good and the great among the world 's university administrators they do serve the important function of providing some sort of assessment of over 20,000 universities or entities that claim to be universities. They get to places where the market leaders, Shanghai Ranking, THE and QS, cannot go.

As a result, the media in several African countries have from time to time published local rankings based on Webometrics that do not appear all that different from what would be expected from a ranking based on research or reputation.

For example, the current top five in Webometrics are:

1. University of Ibadan
2. Covenant University
3. Obafemi Awolowo University
4. University of Nigeria
5. University of Lagos.

The Nigerian press have in the last few years announced the results of rankings supposedly produced by the country's national university commission. In 2016 Nigerian Scholars reported that the NUC had produced a ranking with the top five being:

1. University of Ibadan
2. University of Lagos
3. University of Benin
4. Obafemi Awolowo University
5. Ahmadu Bello University.

Now we have this published in The Nation .Professor Adamu Abubakar Abdulrasheed, Executive Secretary of the NUC, has announced that the rankings attributed to the NUC were fake and that the commission had not published any ranking for several years.

This is  a bit strange. Does that mean that nobody on the commission noticed that fake rankings were being published in its name until now? There may be more to the story.

For the moment, it looks as though Nigeria and other countries in Africa may have to continue relying on Webometrics.