Dr. Yakubu Nura Did NOT Win Any “World Physics Competition”! By Farooq Kperogi

The Nigerian cyberspace is being lit up with the news that a
certain Dr. Yakubu Nuru of the University of Maiduguri has won “the
World Physics Competition by defeating about 5720 contenders from
97 countries.”

This “feat” reputedly earned him the distinction of becoming
“the father of modern Einstein’s planetary equation studies in
Physics.” Hahahaha!

The truth is that Dr. Nura is the willing victim of a scam, a
kind of scam I call scams of ego, which prey on the status
anxieties and low self-esteem of insecure, fraud-prone people.
World Championship, the “organization” that conferred the “award”
on Dr. Nura, is a well-known scam operation that does not, for
strategically fraudulent reasons, have a site with its own domain
name. It uses a free sites.google.com account to perpetrate its
scams.

Anyone who pays a fee can get any—I mean ANY—award from the
site. Check the site (link provided in the comment section below)
to see the list of “award winners” it features in every imaginable
field. You will find many Nigerians there. Some past Nigerian
“winners” even managed to scam the ever credulous Nigerian news
media into publicizing their “feat.”

For instance, one Dr. Kaywood Leizou of the Niger Delta
University (NDU) got the Guardian to write a story about his
“award” from this same fraudulent site on October 19, 2018. Titled
“Bayelsa don wins global chemical sciences contest,” the report
said, “The Bayelsa-born don beat 5,845 others from 89 countries
whose nominations were screened for this year’s edition.
Consequently, the International Agency for Standards and Ratings
(IASR) has recognised Leizou as one the world’s 500 most
influential experts on earth in chemical sciences for the
year.”

In 2018, the same website “conferred” one Dr. Shuaib Idris
Mohammed of Edo State with the “World Champion in Agricultural
Extension (Credit Facilities)” award “out of 91 countries.” The
site added: “Dr. Shuaib Idris Mohammed is now recognized as Father
of modern Credit Facilities in Agricultural Extension. The purpose
of the award is to identify brilliant scientists and academicians
around the world through World Championship. The World Championship
is organized by International Agency for Standards and Ratings at
international level.”

Sounds familiar? That’s the exact language used for Dr. Nura.
The same suspiciously atrocious grammar. The “contenders” for the
“awards” are always in the thousands—and from more than 90
countries in the world.

But nothing in Nura’s scholarly record—and those of others who
have been made “fathers” of whole disciplinary specialties by the
fraudulent site—suggests that he is anywhere close to the pinnacle
of his career. In fact, most of his articles are published in
dodgy, predatory journals that publish ANYTHING submitted to them
for a fee.

The saddest thing about this fraud, for me, is that news
organizations like the NTA, Voice of Nigeria, Sahara Reporters, and
even well-known people like Shehu Sani and Kadaria Ahmed fell for
it. It’s an easily detectable scam, in my opinion.

Nigerians have to be the world’s greatest suckers for cheap
scams!

By Farooq Kperogi

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