Implementation of a Blockchain-Based Certificate Verification System for UNN Academic Credentials

Certificate forgery and fraudulent academic credentials from Nigerian universities have become a growing concern, undermining institutional trust and creating employment market distortions. This study implements a blockchain-based certificate verification system for the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), enabling employers and third parties to independently verify the authenticity of issued academic credentials without involving university administration. The system uses the Ethereum blockchain network, with certificate metadata hashed using SHA-256 and stored on-chain via a Solidity smart contract. A web-based verification portal allows authorized parties to query certificate authenticity by entering a credential code, with results confirmed against the immutable blockchain record. The UNN Registrar's office was modeled as the certificate issuer in the system architecture. System development followed the Design Science Research methodology. Testing involved the issuance of 200 simulated certificates and subsequent verification attempts, including deliberate forgery tests. Results demonstrate that all genuine certificates were correctly verified, while all 50 forged certificate attempts were successfully flagged as invalid. Verification query time averaged 3.1 seconds on the Ethereum test network. The study concludes that blockchain-based credential verification offers a tamper-proof and scalable solution to certificate fraud in Nigerian higher education. Recommendations include gas fee optimization for mainnet deployment and collaboration with the National Universities Commission.