He's back...

Scientific misconduct can mean several things, plagiarism, fabricated data, AI generated content (without proper content disclaimer), use of paper mill or citation boosting 'services' etc. etc. People that are tempted to make use of these practices are 'plenty' but there is always a bigger fish...

Why use paper mills, predatory journals or even worse hijacked journals: just create non-existing 'papers' in real journals!

Fortunately I have seen this rarely but there are some and an imposter that use this scam “Onipe Adabenege Yahaya” is back, I’ve discussed this case previously in this blog, see https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7504547925741326964/3379738657311648725 

Round a year ago the profile of this imposter was removed from RG. Now he is back in ResearchGate under a fake name:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ahmad-Yusuf-23 and in the meantime this is mysteriously changed in https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Bello-4 Just look at 95% or so of the ‘papers’, they are NOT authored by this Ahmad Yusuf or John Bello, but all are ‘authored’ by Onipe Adabenege Yahaya and like before all are FAKE! In this case not (only) AI generated but even more seriously…

 

The 'papers' are either non-existing journals or simply not published in the indicated journal. All with the same pattern:

-Use the template of a journal (real or not)

-Insert something that looks like a paper

-Use a ridiculous amount of references of ‘papers’ (authored by this Yahaya).

 

See for example:

Yahaya, O. A. (2026). The power of corporate governance and the stock market volatility of listed firms in Nigeria. Journal of Economics and Management Studies, 29(4), 114-150 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/404286919_The_Power_of_Corporate_Governance_and_the_Stock_Market_Volatility_of_Listed_Firms_in_Nigeria

With more than 200 self-citations… This is obviously already a big red flag, there is no serious journal that allows that extreme extent of self-citing. But that is not the only ‘problem’.

As indicated as overall message in this (a the previous) blog about this phenomenon: the paper does not exists in the mentioned journal “Journal of Economics and Management Studies”! Even stronger, there is no such journal… 

The journal is a total fabrication. It cannot be found on the internet, not a single indication of their existence. Same goes for the logo, using things like Google Lens, it simple is non-existing. 

Or take: 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/404209112_Board_Independence_and_Bankruptcy_Risk_of_Nigerian_Listed_Firms Again, there is no legit paper with this title. No matter how convincing it all looks. Everything is fake: the journal, the logo, the ISSN number(s), etc.

 

Same with https://www.researchgate.net/publication/404205608_The_Human_Capital_Index_and_Total_Factor_Productivity_in_Nigeria_1960-2025

This all leads to the following Google Scholar profile:

...well the 'remarkable' increase last year says it all.

It is interesting what ChatGPT has to say (and how cautious it is):

"...But there is an important complication. There does appear to be a real academic named Onipe Adabenege Yahaya associated with the Nigerian Defence Academy. I can independently find publications under that name going back at least to 2015. For example:

Financial System Broadening and Economic Performance lists Onipe Adabenege Yahaya among the authors and identifies the Nigerian context. https://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/JAAS/article/view/26423?utm_source=chatgpt.com

A 2015 paper on risk management and organizational performance also lists Yahaya as an author. https://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/RJFA/article/view/24984?utm_source=chatgpt.com

A 2022 paper identifies Onipe Adabenege Yahaya, PhD, Department of Accounting, Management Sciences, Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna.

More recent SSRN records also identify an Onipe Adabenege Yahaya with the Nigerian Defence Academy, including papers posted in 2024–2025. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5228041&utm_source=chatgpt.com(Ed. Whatever was there is in the meantime removed…)

So we need to distinguish two things:

The real Onipe Adabenege Yahaya — apparently an actual academic with a longstanding publication record versus The alleged ResearchGate impersonator — a separate person/profile apparently appropriating Yahaya's identity and/or attaching Yahaya's name to papers that Yahaya did not author.

That distinction is quite important if you're documenting the case, because simply saying “Onipe Adabenege Yahaya is an imposter” could incorrectly accuse the genuine researcher.

What makes your case interesting: The strongest evidence would not be the name itself, but identity/publication inconsistencies. For example:

A ResearchGate profile claiming to be Yahaya.

-The profile's employment/education details not matching independent institutional information.

-Papers attributed to Yahaya that cannot be found in the claimed journal.

-Papers that exist but have different authors.

-DOI/ISSN/volume/page inconsistencies.

-Papers appearing under several different fake ResearchGate identities.

-The same collection of publications being transferred between profiles such as Ahmad Yusuf → John Bello.

-ResearchGate's own history of removing/recreating the profile.

Your April 2026 investigation is therefore potentially much more compelling if presented as an investigation of an impersonation/publication-attribution network, rather than as an accusation against the real Professor Yahaya.

If you want, I can investigate this case systematically — ResearchGate profiles, claimed publications, DOIs, journals, Scopus/Web of Science records, institutional affiliation, and the Ahmad Yusuf/John Bello connection — and build a forensic timeline showing which papers are genuine, questionable, or demonstrably fake."

Interesting is that for example the reference to a 2022 paper with the title "Chief executive officer and firm value: Evidence from Nigeria listed non-financial services companies" is exactly the point! It is a fake paper in a journal that no longer publish anything since 2021 (https://journalofeconomics.org/index.php/site/issue/archive ). The 2022 'paper' mentions Volume 10, while the real journal stopped at Volume 6 in 2021. It simple does not add up.

It shows to me that (as noticed most of the times) that ChatGPT gathers pretty decent info in an impressively short time but the devil is in the details: a close shows quite some errors and/or misinterpretations (like the 'evidence' of the existence of a real and legit person with nothing but good intentions...).