Nigeria must build university reputation and research, ranking adviser says
Nigeria recorded 29 universities in the 2027 Times Higher Education rankings, up from 24 a year earlier, but adviser Peter Okebukola said stronger academic reputation, research funding and international partnerships were needed. A national ranking exercise covering universities, polytechnics and colleges is also under way.
Nigerian universities need stronger global reputations, research output and international partnerships to improve the country’s performance in global rankings, the chairman of the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee, Peter Okebukola, has said. Okebukola was assessing Nigeria’s results in the 2027 Times Higher Education World University Rankings released on Wednesday. The ranking covered 2,297 universities in 118 countries and territories.
Nigeria had 29 ranked universities, compared with 24 in the 2026 edition, and recorded the highest number of ranked institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, which had 69. Okebukola said the increase should be accompanied by closer attention to areas where the country continued to fall behind. He identified global academic reputation as the largest opportunity for improvement, saying reputation-related measures accounted for 33 per cent of the overall ranking score.
He recommended greater participation in international conferences, joint research, visiting-professor programmes and stronger links with academics and alumni abroad. The former executive secretary of the National Universities Commission also called for better research funding and productivity, more accurate data submissions, increased doctoral output, international academic mobility, stronger industry engagement and more patenting. Research Quality was Nigeria’s strongest ranking pillar, with a mean score of 43.3.
Research Environment recorded 13.9, while Teaching had a mean score of 20.6. Covenant University, the University of Ibadan and the University of Lagos shared Nigeria’s highest position, in the global 801–1000 band. Ahmadu Bello University, Bayero University, Landmark University and the University of Ilorin were placed in the 1001–1200 band, bringing the number of Nigerian institutions in the global top 1,200 to seven.
Okebukola said NiTERAC had also begun work on a national ranking of universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. The exercise, directed by Education Minister Tunji Alausa, is expected to be completed before December 15, 2026.
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