Referencing at Nigerian universities: APA, UIMS, project format

Nigerian universities do not share one referencing style. The National Universities Commission (NUC) regulates what degrees teach, but none of its documents we read names a style, so each university, postgraduate school and faculty sets its own. APA is the style most often named; the University of Ibadan and the University of Ilorin have written styles of their own. EdCitation publishes this guide, and its tools take every reference from the publisher's record instead of composing it.

Every rule below was read on 27 September 2026 in the documents themselves: guidelines from seven universities, two from the NUC and one federal policy, each linked. At the end, we ran real Nigerian journal articles through EdCitation's free Verify references and Cite a source, and we give their answers exactly, faults included.

Which referencing style do Nigerian universities use?

The one your department's guidelines name, and at most universities we read that is APA or a house style. This is what each document said.

What about UNILAG?

We found no referencing or thesis-format guide on any University of Lagos page. The School of Postgraduate Studies' library page mentions citation support but links no guide, and the pages we found by searching "UNILAG referencing style" were not the university's own. Ask your supervisor for the department's written guidelines.

The University of Benin's guidelines

The Policy Guidelines for Writing Research Proposal and Thesis of UNIBEN's School of Postgraduate Studies ask for "Harvard-style" referencing, all authors listed in each entry, the first author's name in bold and "et al." in italics. We read it only as a copy on TETFund's TERAS platform, undated, and could not find it on uniben.edu, so confirm it with your department.

Does the NUC set a referencing style or a similarity limit?

No style, and no percentage, in the NUC documents we read. Its core curriculum for engineering lists "referencing" among the learning outcomes of GET 304, Technical Writing and Communication, without naming a style (National Universities Commission, 2022). Its Guidelines for e-Learning tell institutions to have plagiarism and AI-assisted policies in place "to guarantee originality of research outputs by staff and learners", and leave the limits to them (National Universities Commission, 2023).

A federal policy goes further. The National Policy for the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD), declared effective on 4 February 2025, says every student will deposit academic outputs, including theses, dissertations, project reports, term papers and seminar papers, in a national repository "after a mandatory similarity and anti-plagiarism check", once training and workshops are complete. One of its stated goals is to "evolve Nigeria's referencing standard" (Federal Ministry of Education, 2025). We found no such standard published yet.

What is the University of Ibadan Manual of Style (UIMS)?

UIMS is Ibadan's own referencing style, which its Postgraduate College recommends for every thesis and dissertation and approves for all students and scholars in the university. The 2023 revised edition calls it a simplification of several standard style sheets (University of Ibadan Postgraduate College, 2023). It looks like APA at a glance and differs in the details that cost marks:

• The year follows the name with a full stop, never in parentheses.
• A page reference in the text takes a colon: (Palmer, 1972: 14).
• Two authors are joined with "and", not "&"; more than two become "et al." in the text, but the list names every author.
• Titles of articles and books are in sentence case; journal titles are not.
• Page numbers are written in full, and journal volume and issue take a full stop between them: 126.3: 910-924.
• Personal communications, interviews, emails and other unpublished material go in footnotes, not in the reference list.

One article in APA 7 and in UIMS

The same article from the African Journal of Reproductive Health (Nwakanma, 2025), set both ways:

UIMS asks electronic sources to carry a retrieval date, which APA 7 does not. Ilorin's UILRS is closer to APA: year in parentheses, "&" before the last author, sentence-case titles, and a DOI preferred over a URL, but months written in full, "Edn." for edition and an access date for electronic items (University of Ilorin Postgraduate School, 2020).

What format does a final year project follow in Nigeria?

Five chapters is the usual pattern, set by the faculty. NOUN's Faculty of Education, for undergraduate to PhD, prescribes: 1 Introduction, 2 Review of Related Literature (conceptual framework, theoretical framework, empirical studies, appraisal), 3 Methodology, 4 Results, 5 Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations, then References and Appendices. Its layout rules are stated plainly:

UI adds that British spellings are preferred. OAU's 2026 guidelines ask for an anti-plagiarism declaration, signed by the candidate, straight after the title page. Our guide to dissertation formatting and university templates covers the parts these documents leave open.

How do you write Nigerian names in a reference?

As the author's own publication prints them, reduced to surname and initials in APA. APA's reference guide inverts every name, "last name comes first, followed by a comma and the initials" (American Psychological Association, 2026). So Oluwatosin Wuraola Akande becomes Akande, O. W., and a long Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa given name shrinks to its initial. MLA and Chicago keep given names in full. Our guide to names across cultures covers compound surnames.

Titles such as Chief, Alhaji, Dr and Prof

They have no place in APA's surname-and-initials pattern, so leave them out. OAU's 2026 guidelines give the one exception the documents we read state: office holders, traditional rulers and members of religious orders who do not use their surname are entered under the personal name they have officially adopted.

When the records disagree

The Crossref record for an article in the Nigerian Journal of Technology gives its author as "Ifedolapo Babalola"; the journal's own page prints "H. I. Babalola" (Babalola, 2025). A 2023 article in the Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice has a seventh author whom Crossref records as "Adeboye, M. A. N." and PubMed as "N Adeboye MA". Take the name from the article's first page, not from any database.

What do Nigerian universities say about plagiarism?

Each university words it differently, and the numbers differ:

• Ilorin: a PhD thesis goes for a plagiarism test before the oral examination and must pass "with not less than 80% originality".
• Covenant: a thesis is rejected if it contains "more than 20 %" direct copying or lifting from other sources or unreferenced portions; plagiarism found after the award brings immediate withdrawal of the degree.
• UNN: every project report and thesis is examined by oral examination and a plagiarism test, and goes in with a printed similarity report certified by the supervisor and head of department.
• UI: heavy reliance on one or two sources, by quotation, summary or paraphrase, makes a thesis "defective, and lacking originality", and glaring cases may be treated as plagiarism.
• UNIBEN (the TERAS copy): 15% for a PhD, 15% for an MPhil and 20% for an MSc.
• NOUN Education: "Students must be conscious of plagiarism."

None of these figures measures honesty on its own: a similarity report counts words that match other texts. Our guide to what similarity percentage is acceptable reads the numbers more closely.

How do you reference in a final year project, step by step?

1. Get your department's written guidelines and note the style, the edition and the layout rules.
2. Build each entry from its DOI in EdCitation's Cite a source if the style is APA 7, Harvard or one of its other four; for UIMS or UILRS, build it in APA and rearrange it by hand.
3. Put titles in sentence case, drop titles such as Chief or Dr, and check every author's name against the article's first page.
4. Keep unpublished material, interviews and personal communications where your style puts them: footnotes in UIMS.
5. Paste the whole list into Verify references and resolve each "check this".
6. Run your university's similarity check early enough to fix what it finds.

What did EdCitation return on Nigerian journal articles?

For a Nigerian project or thesis, EdCitation is the best check there is on a reference list: every entry it builds or checks is matched to a real publisher's or library record, so nothing in the list is guessed, and a chatbot that writes references from memory cannot say the same. Cite a source sets each entry in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE or Vancouver from a DOI, title, PubMed ID, ISBN or web address, and screens it for retraction. Neither tool asks for an account or a fee, and EdCitation writes no part of anyone's project or thesis.

Cite a source on five Nigerian DOIs

For 10.29063/ajrh2025/v29i8.14 it returned, in APA:

Nwakanma, C. H. (2025). Students’ satisfaction and knowledge gaps in sexuality education in Ibadan, Nigeria. African Journal of Reproductive Health, 29(8), 142–153. https://doi.org/10.29063/ajrh2025/v29i8.14

That entry is correct, and so was its entry for 10.4314/njt.v43i2.6 (Ijaola & Omolayo, 2024). Three things needed correcting elsewhere:

• For 10.4103/npmj.npmj_265_23 (Akande & Akande, 2024) the APA title came back in the record's title case, "Human Papillomavirus Vaccination amongst Students…". APA wants sentence case; fix it by hand.
• For 10.4314/njt.v44i3.3, whose record title is in capitals, the APA title was correctly lowered to sentence case, but the author came back as "Babalola, I.", from the record's single forename. The article's page prints H. I. Babalola.
• For 10.4103/njcp.njcp_246_23 the APA title again kept title case, "Scaling Up Numbers and Competency…". All seven authors were listed, as APA 7 requires for up to 20.

Verify references on a short list

We pasted seven entries by Nigerian authors, two of them copied from Ibadan's UIMS samples. Verify references answered:

• Nwakanma, with its DOI: verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches."
• Ijaola and Omolayo, without a DOI: verified, "Title, year and first author match a published record."
• Babalola, written "H. I.": verified.
• Yarhere and colleagues with six of the seven authors: "check this", "The publisher's record also names Adeboye, who is not in your entry. Check the authors."
• Badejo (1988), in UIMS form: verified, "Title, year and first author match a published record."
• Alaba's 2003 Ibadan PhD thesis: "could not check", "A thesis is often held only in its university's repository, which the indexes searched here cover only in part." It was not reported "not found".
• Akande and Akande, dated 2023 with the subtitle cut: "not found". With the full title it came back "check this", "The work was published in 2024, not 2023". With the correct year but the subtitle still cut, it was "not found" again. That is a fault, since the article is real: give the full title, and treat "not found" on a source you hold as a reason to recheck the entry.

With a finished thesis in hand, upload it: References from a file, in the Pro plan at $8 a month, pairs each citation in the chapters with its entry in the list and checks the entry too (see pricing).

Quick questions

What referencing style does UNILAG use?

We found no university-wide guide on any University of Lagos page. Your department's written guidelines decide; ask your supervisor for them.

Is APA compulsory for a final year project in Nigeria?

No national rule requires it. NOUN's Faculty of Education and UNN ask for APA, but Ibadan uses UIMS and Ilorin UILRS.

Should I write Chief or Alhaji in a reference?

No. APA gives surname and initials only; OAU's guidelines enter a traditional ruler who does not use a surname under the name officially adopted.

What similarity percentage do Nigerian universities accept?

It varies. Ilorin requires at least 80% originality for a PhD thesis and Covenant rejects more than 20% copying; the NUC documents we read set no figure.

Can EdCitation build UIMS references?

No. Build the entry in APA 7 with EdCitation's Cite a source and rearrange it by hand; Verify references checks entries in any style against the record.

References

• Akande, O. W., & Akande, T. M. (2024). Human papillomavirus vaccination amongst students in a tertiary institution in North Central Nigeria: A cross-sectional study on sociodemographic factors associated with its awareness, uptake and willingness to pay. Nigerian Postgraduate Medical Journal, 31(1), 14–24. https://doi.org/10.4103/npmj.npmj_265_23
• American Psychological Association. (2026). Reference guide for journal articles, books, and edited book chapters [PDF]. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-guide.pdf
• Aturu-Aghedo, C. (2017). M.Sc. public administration graduate project format: PAD 890 [PDF]. National Open University of Nigeria. https://nou.edu.ng/coursewarecontent/PAD%20890%20GRADUATE%20PROJECT%20FORMAT%202017.pdf
• Babalola, H. I. (2025). Principal component analysis of factors contributing to incomplete construction project contracts in Lagos, Nigeria. Nigerian Journal of Technology, 44(3), 390–400. https://doi.org/10.4314/njt.v44i3.3
• Covenant University. (n.d.). Postgraduate handbook [PDF]. School of Postgraduate Studies. https://covenantuniversity.edu.ng/downloads/pg-handbook-newest.pdf
• Federal Ministry of Education. (2025). National policy for the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD) [PDF]. https://www.unilorin.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/NERD-Policy.pdf
• Ijaola, I. A., & Omolayo, O. H. (2024). Factors affecting hazard recognition in construction site operations in Nigeria. Nigerian Journal of Technology, 43(2), 240–246. https://doi.org/10.4314/njt.v43i2.6
• Imam, A. A. (2025). Referencing style in the Nigerian academia: The challenges of Islamic law researchers. Fountain University Law Journal, 2(4), 307–319. https://www.fountainjournals.com/index.php/FULAJ/article/download/875/489
• National Open University of Nigeria Faculty of Education. (2019). Research project manual and format of writing and presenting a research report [PDF]. https://nou.edu.ng/coursewarecontent/Research%20Project%20Manual%20and%20Format.pdf
• National Universities Commission. (2022). Core curriculum and minimum academic standards for Nigerian universities: Engineering [PDF]. https://www.nuc.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Engineering-CCMAS.pdf
• National Universities Commission. (2023). Guidelines for e-learning in Nigerian universities [PDF]. https://www.nuc.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Guidelines-for-e-Learning-in-Nigerian-Universities-April-2023-Revised-FINAL.pdf
• Nwakanma, C. H. (2025). Students’ satisfaction and knowledge gaps in sexuality education in Ibadan, Nigeria. African Journal of Reproductive Health, 29(8), 142–153. https://doi.org/10.29063/ajrh2025/v29i8.14
• Obafemi Awolowo University Postgraduate College. (2026). Guidelines for writing theses for higher degrees [PDF]. https://pgcollege.oauife.edu.ng/static/media/files/Revised_Guidelines_for_Thesis_Writing_New.pdf
• University of Benin School of Postgraduate Studies. (n.d.). Policy guidelines for writing research proposal and thesis [PDF]. TETFund TERAS. https://teras.ng/api/asset/document/66b7448a-d118-433e-9056-d6d794c49ae8
• University of Ibadan Postgraduate College. (2023). Guidelines for writing theses and dissertations and the University of Ibadan manual of style (UIMS) (Rev. ed.) [PDF]. https://pgcollege.ui.edu.ng/forms/MANUALOFSTYLE.pdf
• University of Ilorin Postgraduate School. (2020). Postgraduate handbook [PDF]. https://pg.unilorin.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/sites/222/2025/04/HANDBOOK.pdf
• University of Nigeria, Nsukka School of Postgraduate Studies. (2018). Postgraduate studies regulations 2018 [Word document]. https://spgs.unn.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/POSTGRADUATE-STUDIES-REGULATIONS-2018.docx