There is a vital distinction in the Anthony Kila controversy that public debate must not lose: the validity of a credential is one question; the value of a mind is another.
The first must be established by documents, institutions, and verifiable records. The second is judged over time by the quality of ideas, the seriousness of scholarship, the influence of intellectual work, and the contribution a person makes to public discourse.
These questions may intersect, but they are not the same question.
That distinction matters because the controversy surrounding Kila has quickly acquired the familiar velocity of Nigerian public scandal. A question about academic credentials can easily become a referendum on an entire person. A report can become a verdict. A request for clarification can become an accusation. An institutional inquiry can, in the court of public opinion, become a conviction before the person at its centre has had a reasonable opportunity to put the relevant documents on the table.
That is neither justice nor intellectual seriousness.
The reports that triggered the controversy raise questions about the academic titles and qualifications associated with Kila. He has disputed the allegations and indicated that he has documentation to support his position. Investigative and institutional processes have consequently followed. Those processes should be allowed to run their course.
But there is another part of this conversation that deserves equal attention. Whatever eventually emerges from the documentary examination, Kila’s contribution to public intellectual life should not be casually erased by the controversy. His interventions on governance, politics, leadership, international affairs and public policy have given him a recognisable place in Nigeria’s intellectual and media space. People may agree or disagree with his conclusions. They may challenge his analysis. They may interrogate his scholarship. But intellectual disagreement should not be confused with intellectual emptiness.
A disputed credential does not automatically erase a lifetime of ideas. Equally, intellectual brilliance does not authenticate a certificate. Both propositions can be true at the same time. That is why the appropriate response is neither reflexive defence nor eager condemnation. It is verification.
If a university degree is questioned, let the awarding institution speak. If a professorship is questioned, let the institution said to have conferred it produce the record. If a professional or international designation is challenged, let the relevant organisation confirm or reject it. If there are inconsistencies, let them be examined against original records rather than social-media interpretations.
And if Kila has documents capable of answering the questions, he should be given a reasonable opportunity to produce and authenticate them. That is not special treatment. It is basic procedural fairness. There is also a larger institutional question which Nigeria should not lose sight of while concentrating on the individual.
How did the titles circulate for so long? How were they presented in universities, on television, at conferences, in public forums, and in institutional appointments? Who relied upon them? Who had responsibility for verification? What documents were examined before the titles were accepted? Were they ever independently checked?
If the credentials withstand scrutiny, then the episode exposes a serious failure of verification. If they do not, the failure is even more serious. Either way, the institutions that allowed the disputed identity to travel so widely cannot simply step aside and pretend that the entire matter belongs to Kila. Titles acquire authority because institutions confer, publish, repeat, and recognise them. Once a title enters official programmes, biographies, university documents, media introductions, and public appointments, it ceases to be merely a private description. It becomes part of an institutional chain of authentication that demands scrutiny.
Nigeria also needs to confront a deeper cultural problem: our extraordinary appetite for titles. We have developed a habit of decorating names with credentials until the credentials sometimes become more important than the work — Professor, Doctor, Fellow, Consultant, Adviser, Expert, Fellow of this, Chairman of that. In a society where titles can open doors, secure invitations, command fees, and confer influence, credentials inevitably acquire economic and social value. That makes verification more important, not less.
But the answer to title inflation is not intellectual character assassination. Nor should the exposure of a potentially defective credential become an excuse to dismiss every idea associated with the person who carried it.
A serious society must be capable of holding two thoughts simultaneously: credentials matter, and ideas matter. It must also understand that due process protects more than the person under investigation. It protects the credibility of the institution doing the investigation and the integrity of the eventual conclusion.
The temptation in public controversies is always to choose sides before choosing evidence. Once that happens, facts become ammunition. People begin searching for material that confirms the verdict they have already reached. That is precisely what an evidence-based society should resist.
Kila deserves scrutiny. His credentials, where questioned, should be subjected to rigorous documentary verification. The institutions involved deserve answers about their own verification processes. And the public deserves the truth.
But truth does not become more truthful because it arrives quickly. Let the documents speak. Let the institutions verify. Let the investigators investigate. Let Kila have a reasonable opportunity to answer the questions raised against him. And when the evidence is complete, let the conclusion follow the evidence — not the other way round.
There is a lesson here larger than Anthony Kila. A serious society does not protect people from scrutiny. It protects scrutiny from becoming persecution.
And in the end, the evidence should speak loudly enough that nobody needs to speak for it.
Ogundipe, a public affairs analyst and a former President of both the Nigeria and the Africa Union of Journalists, writes from Abuja
