The police in Enugu State have grilled Chukwunonye Okereke, a media consultant to a former Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji, for alleged criminal defamation of a former Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Oguejiofo Ujam.
PREMIUM TIMES reliably gathered that Mr Okereke faced police investigators who interrogated him for hours on Monday for claiming that Mr Ujam, a professor, colluded with the then-PDP-led Enugu State Government to declare that Mr Nnaji forged his UNN degree certificate.
Mr Okereke was interrogated by police investigators at the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) of the police in Enugu State.
This newspaper learnt that his interrogation was in response to a petition submitted to the police by Mr Ujam.
PREMIUM TIMES obtained a copy of the petition on Monday which was dated 19 May 2026 and acknowledged the following day.
In the petition, addressed to the Commissioner of Police in Enugu State Bitrus Giwa, Mr Ujam alleged that Mr Okereke “criminally defamed” his person on 7 October 2025 while the media consultant was defending Mr Nnaji’s certificate forgery scandal on Channels TV’s Politics Today.
Defence of Nnaji’s Certificate forgery scandal
Recall that Mr Okereke had appeared at the TV show to defend Mr Nnaji after a painstaking two-year investigation published by PREMIUM TIMES in October last year revealed that the then-minister forged his UNN degree and NYSC certificates which he submitted to President Bola Tinubu and the Nigerian Senate during his ministerial confirmation in 2023.
Mr Ujam, who served as UNN’s vice-chancellor from February to August 2025, had left the position at the time of the TV programme.
Simon Ortuanya, a professor, who was appointed in August 2025, has been serving as the institution’s vice-chancellor.
Defection to APC, PDP
For context, Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State was in the PDP at the time under which he won the 18 March 2023 governorship election in the South-eastern state.
Mr Nnaji was a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) under which he unsuccessfully contested in the governorship election.
Both Messrs Mbah and Nnaji had been political opponents.
While the governor defected from the PDP to the APC in October 2025, the former minister recently and “quietly” moved to the PDP faction backed by Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike.
The politician, in May this year, emerged as the 2027 governorship candidate for the faction of the party.
The alleged defamation on the TV programme
In the TV programme which was monitored by this newspaper, Mr Okereke claimed that Mr Nnaji’s certificate forgery scandal was politically motivated.
He suggested that Governor Mbah was responsible for the then-minister’s forgery scandal.
The media consultant specifically said that UNN was “an arm of the PDP” and that Mr Ujam was the former chairman of the party in UNN while Mr Ortuanya was the current chairman of the “PDP arm” of the institution.
He suggested that both Messrs Ujam and Ortuanya colluded to disown and label the then-minister’s UNN degree certificate in his possession as forged.
Channels TV published a video clip of the programme on its verified YouTube channel on 7 October 2027.
In the video 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.”
The media consultant further claimed that Mr Ujam served as the “returning officer for PDP” in Nkanu East Local Government Area during the 2023 governorship election and that “he was compensated with the acting vice-chancellorship position.”
Meanwhile, checks by PREMIUM TIMES showed that political parties in Nigeria, including the PDP, are not allowed to have any official designated as “returning officer” in any election in the country.
It is only the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that usually deploys “returning officers” in various local government areas.
The returning officers are also called collation officers.
Political parties are only allowed to have one representative known as “party agents” in each of the polling units during any election.
Findings by this newspaper further showed that a Computer Science lecturer from UNN, Ogbene Nnaemeka, was the returning officer for the Nkanu East Local Government Area at the time of the governorship poll.
Mr Ujam said in the petition that he was appointed acting UNN vice-chancellor “on merit” by President Tinubu through the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, and that the topic under discussion at Channels TV’s programme had nothing to do with him, having exited office at the time.
“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, impugning my integrity and bringing me into public odium and opprobrium,” he said.
He stressed that President Tinubu who appointed him as the UNN acting vice-chancellor had been a member of the APC, but Mr Okereke accused him of working as a PDP returning officer during the 2023 gubernatorial poll 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, contempt, ridicule and damage my professional image through the media.
“Since the publication of the defamatory statement, I have not had peace of mind as I continue to receive calls from friends and associates who call to either ascertain the veracity of the said publication or express their discomfort over the defamatory statement,” he stated.
The professor appealed to the police commissioner to intervene in the matter and “save me from this malicious embarrassment and also ensure that justice is served accordingly.”
‘It was AI-generated’
PREMIUM TIMES gathered that some police operatives had attempted to arrest Mr Okereke in late May, but he pleaded for time to make himself available for the police interrogation, citing PDP primaries at the time.
The media consultant later arrived at the police SCID office on Monday in the company of his lawyer.
Insiders informed this newspaper that he denied defaming the former vice-chancellor.
When he was presented with the video clip, he claimed that the Channels TV video clip of the programme was generated with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Imminent criminal charges
Sources familiar with the matter told PREMIUM TIMES that Mr Okereke would be made to appear before police investigators again at a later date in what insiders say would be part of final preparations to charge him in court.
This newspaper understands that the police remain determined to charge the media consultant despite his denials.
Police investigators believe that Mr Okereke’s AI-generated claim was an attempt to divert attention, considering that the Channels TV video clip was irrefutable.
Background
In October 2023, PREMIUM TIMES began investigating Mr Nnaji’s academic records.
The then-minister had submitted a degree and NYSC certificates to President Tinubu and the Nigerian Senate during his ministerial confirmation in 2023.
He claimed he obtained a degree certificate from UNN, where he purportedly graduated in 1985.
Apparently disturbed that he was under scrutiny, Mr Nnaji filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja to block both UNN and its vice-chancellor, Simon Ortuanya, a professor, from releasing his academic records.
Apart from the UNN and its vice-chancellor, the minister of education, the National Universities Commission, the university’s registrar, Mr Ujam, and the Senate of the university were listed as defendants in the suit.
However, the politician, through his legal team, recently applied for an out-of-court settlement.
Before the then-minister could obtain an injunction from the court, Mr Ortuanya had responded to PREMIUM TIMES’ Freedom of Information (FOI) letter, confirming that Mr Nnaji had forged his UNN degree certificate.
The UNN registrar would shortly thereafter corroborate Mr Ortuanya’s position, indicating that although Mr Nnaji was admitted to the university in 1981, he neither graduated nor was issued any certificate.
NYSC authorities, in response to a separate FOI letter from PREMIUM TIMES, had disowned the discharge certificate in possession of the then-minister.
Mr Nnaji resigned from his position as minister three days after this newspaper published the investigation exposing how he forged his degree and NYSC certificates.
Many Nigerians had called for Mr Nnaji’s prosecution, maintaining that his resignation was inadequate in light of his violations of various Nigerian laws, including the Criminal Code Act.
Earlier this year, a legal practitioner, Liborous Oshoma, criticised the Nigerian government for failing to prosecute Mr Nnaji over the certificate forgery scandal, maintaining that people like the former minister “should be prosecuted and banned from holding public office to serve as a deterrent to others.”
More so, Mr Nnaji is pushing to be governor in Enugu State in 2027 despite being under investigation over certificate forgery by the
Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
PREMIUM TIMES exclusively reported in February that the ICPC began an investigation into Mr Nnaji’s forgery scandal.
Insiders had told this newspaper that the former minister could be prosecuted if the investigation shows that he truly forged his credentials.
Meanwhile, in March, this newspaper also exclusively reported that an investigative panel set up by Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Mr Alausa, found that Mr Nnaji indeed forged his degree and NYSC certificates.
