PREMIUM TIMES has reported that Mr. Anthony Kila, the suspended Pro-Chancellor of Michael and Cecilia Ibru University, falsified the Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral degrees he has claimed from universities in the United Kingdom and Italy, in the second part of a five-month investigation into his credentials.
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Asked for evidence of the degrees, Mr. Kila told the newspaper he was still assembling his records.
The newspaper reports that Mr. Kila gave it the following list of qualifications in a message in May:
| Claimed qualification | Claimed institution | Claimed year |
|---|---|---|
| BA, Classic Studies | Università per Stranieri, Italy | 1989 |
| MA, European Studies | Università per Stranieri, Italy | 1991 |
| Postgraduate Diploma, Media and Communication | University of Essex | 1992 |
| MSc, International Banking and Finance | City University London (now City St George’s, University of London) | 1994 |
| PhD, Political Economy | University of Perugia | 1997 |
| MBA | Aston University, Birmingham | 2002 |
| Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education | Cambridge | 2006 |
| LLM | Cambridge | 2009 |
The newspaper states that its enquiry into Mr. Kila’s academic credentials began five months ago with a probe into his professorship, “a rank he publicly claimed for many years.”
He told the newspaper that the European Centre for Advanced and Professional Studies (ECAPS) made him a professor and a Jean Monnet Professor of Strategy and Development in 2016. The newspaper reports that it found the institution does not exist, and that the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), which administers the Jean Monnet actions, disowned the claimed Jean Monnet professorship.
Days after that report, Michael and Cecilia Ibru University suspended Mr. Kila as Pro-Chancellor, a role he has held since August 2025.
In May, the newspaper asked Mr. Kila for a comprehensive curriculum vitae. He referred the reporter to his profile on the website of the Commonwealth Institute of Advanced and Professional Studies (CIAPS), described by the newspaper as “an organisation he controls”. MCIU also published the profile on its own website, and removed it after the first investigation.
The profile did not state which schools he attended or what qualifications he obtained from where. It listed an LLM, an MBA, an MSc, a PhD, a PGD and a PGCE, and read:
“Anthony studied in Cambridge, London, Perugia, and Suffolk. He graduated with a first-class degree in political economy and later specialised in political anthropology. He has taught in various colleges and universities in Cambridge, Ipswich, Lecce, London, Perugia, and Siena.”
The newspaper reports that this contradicted the resume he then supplied: the profile claims a first-class degree in political economy, while the resume lists his first degree as a BA in Classic Studies from Università per Stranieri, Perugia. The resume mentions neither a first-class classification nor any first degree in political economy.
Between May and July, the newspaper reports, the universities declined to answer third-party requests, citing United Kingdom and European data protection law.
City St George’s, University of London said the information sought was personal and exempt from disclosure under the UK Freedom of Information Act and the GDPR:
“To even confirm whether or not the information is held would involve the release of personal data about the data subject.”
Aston University and the University of Cambridge referred the reporter to third-party verification services such as the UK’s Higher Education Degree Datacheck (HEDD) which require the candidate’s own written consent before a request can be processed.
The newspaper says it therefore continued with the professorship strand first, and returned to the degrees afterwards, this time asking the institutions both whether Mr. Kila obtained the qualifications and whether they ever offered the programmes at all, and putting the request on the basis of public interest and fact-checking. Most then replied.
“There is no record in Aston University’s student registry of an Anthony Kila studying for an MBA.”
The university said its records differ from the claim, and that he enrolled on a one-year Banking and International Finance programme in 2000 and was deregistered without completing it:
“They (Mr Kila) began their degree on 18/09/2000, with an expected end date of 31/10/2001.”
“Their actual end date was 30/06/2001, and were deregistered from their course the same year. So, it appears they were on a one-year course that they did not complete.”
The newspaper notes it remains unclear which bachelor’s degree he used to enrol, and why he was deregistered.
“We do not offer this course, and we have not offered this course in the past.”
The university said its economics department does not award doctorates in political economy:
“The Department of Economics offers a PhD programme in Economics – Institutions, Business, and Quantitative Methods.”
The newspaper reports that the university’s website shows it has never offered a doctorate in political economy, and that its political science department offers doctorates in four specialities Legality, Political Cultures, Democracy and Politics, Public Policies, and Globalisation none of them political economy.
The newspaper reports that, according to the institution’s historical archive, it began offering Bachelor’s degrees only in 1992 and postgraduate degrees only after 1999, following the Bologna Process. Before then it offered only non-degree courses in Italian literature, the history of Italian art and the history of Italian music.
It has never offered a BA in Classic Studies or an MA in European Studies. Its current bachelor’s programmes are in International and Advertising Communication; Italian Language and Culture in the Digital World; Made in Italy, Food and Hospitality; and Social Sciences for Sustainability and International Cooperation.
Because there is more than one Università per Stranieri in Italy, the newspaper contacted the Siena institution as well. It offers degrees in Italian Language and Culture; Linguistic and Cultural Mediation; and Multilingualism, Translation and Interpreting, with master’s courses in Letters, Teaching and Publishing; Linguistic Sciences and Intercultural Communication; Languages, Cooperation and Diversity; and Archaeology and Art Histories. None matches the claims.
The university had not responded to the newspaper’s enquiry at the time of publication.
On the certificate, the newspaper reports that Cambridge does not run a “Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education”. The nearest qualification is the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education, a master’s-level course open only to “Cambridge teaching staff with a minimum of three years’ experience of teaching in higher education” — and the university’s website shows the programme began only in 2017, eleven years after the date claimed.
On the LLM, the newspaper reasons from the university’s published admission requirements, which call for at least a first-class law degree and candidates “typically placed well within the top 10 per cent of law students in their jurisdiction”, that Mr. Kila could not have been admitted, there being no evidence that he holds a law degree and no claim by him to one.
The newspaper put its findings to him by email and by message. His reply, in full as reported:
“You are still on my case. I have been reading everything you have posted, and I still wonder who will benefit from my destruction.”
“I am currently putting together my academic and professional documents, and they will be ready soon. I started contacting the institutions I am associated with on Monday, and these documents cannot be ready by Thursday, as you are requesting here. As you can imagine, gathering these documents is a top priority for me.”
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