By Dr John Idriss Lahai
Who is Mr Brima Baluwa Koroma? Mr Koroma is the Executive Chairman of the Petroleum Regulatory Agency (PRA) of the Government of Sierra Leone. He holds a fake Master Class Certificate (equivalent to an MSc degree) in Business Management and Leadership from LGS (the London Graduate School, a scam university that was—and still is—unaccredited anywhere), and a Doctor of Business Administration (Honoris Causa) from the fake Commonwealth University (CU).
Excluding the transfer fees, Mr Brima Baluwa Koroma paid US$5000 for the PhD and US$3000 for the Master Class Certificate. The transfers were made on 3rd March 2019, and three weeks and two days later (on 27th March 2019), Mr Koroma travelled to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where, on the 29th March 2019 the fake degrees were conferred.
Let us digress a bit: What do we know about the London Graduate School and the Commonwealth University? On paper, they are separate institutions. But, in practice, they are the same – the same scam run, initially, by a group of Nigerians; but the network has grown to include Europeans (British citizens), Asians (Indians), Caribbeans (Belizeans; citizens of Belize), and Middle Easterners (mostly expatriates working in the UAE, especially in Dubai). In fact “on the website of Commonwealth University, the London Graduate School is mentioned as the official tuition provider for Commonwealth University Belize programmes. While the London Graduate School is registered in London with no traceable link, the Commonwealth university is registered in the Caribbeans. Surprising, both the London Graduate School and the Commonwealth university jointly operate from two addresses; one in north London and the other in central London. However, a closer look at these addresses shows that both places have no resemblance to a place of learning” (writes the New Editor of The Street Journal, on 26th October 2021). Relying on this lead by The Street Journal, I headed to London (to one of the campuses of the Commonwealth University). The campus is a single-family home (with a kitchen, beds, and table—just what you would expect to see in the home of an average, working-class London family); see the attached photo of the semi-detached single-family home (see the photo. The the red-circled portion of the house was (and still, is) one of the university campuses of the Commonwealth University in London.
How did they contact Mr Brima Baluwa Koroma? These fake degree business swindlers send, via emails, personal invitation letters to prospective awardees, including Mr Brima Baluwa Koroma. Once payments were received from these awardees, they were issued with an invitation letter to attend a conference in Dubai. Like the other countries that make up the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Quwain, and Fujairah), Dubai has strict rules regarding the operations of universities within the Emirates. It was never going to be possible for the Dubai authorities to approve the use of their country to award degrees. To get around this law, they (the organizers of the London Graduate School and the Commonwealth University degree conferral ceremony) will (once every year) request the hosting of a one-day international conference in Dubai—in any of the hotels preselected for the said conference. Hotels in Dubai, like hotels in all free-market economies, have “confidentiality policies” regarding what happens in their conference rooms. So it is none of their business to report to the authorities— as along as the conference was conducted in an orderly manner and it does not pose any problems for the safety of others.
Interestingly, to prevent Dubai authorities from suspecting their scam, when applying for authorisation, the conference organizers will change the topic of their annual meetings. The title of the March 2019 conference that Mr Brima Baluwa Koroma attended was titled “Growth and Sustainability Strategies for Leaders, Professionals and Entrepreneurs.” For attending this one-day conference after paying US$8,592, the Mr Brima Baluwa Koroma who flew out of Sierra Leone as a “Mister” returned home as a “Doctor” — A miracle of the fake degree mills, indeed.
This was not the end: Following his return to Freetown, Mr (now fake Doctor) Brima Baluwa Koroma called on all his friends—head of government parastatals—to issue press releases to inform their staff members that, going forward, their “good friend,” Brima Baluwa Koroma, the Executive Chairman of the Petroleum Regulatory Agency of the Government of Sierra Leone, should be known (and addressed) as Dr Brima Baluwa Koroma. None responded. He then turned to the Satellite Newspaper to inform the general Sierra Leonean population about the award of his PhD Degree and implicitly called on all the people of Sierra Leone to call him “Dr Brima Baluwa Koroma.” I have attached screenshots of the Satellite Newspaper story. For convenience, here is the URL of the newspaper publication. http://www.thesatellitenews.com/index.php/de/commentary/23-news-articles/418-commonwealth-university-decorates-p-r-a-boss (I accessed the URL of this story, for the last time, on 13th April 2022 – it was still operational at the time I posted this update).
I remain, Dr John Idriss Lahai
