World Universities Ranking: Top 10 universities in Nigeria

For the second consecutive year, Covenant University, a private institution in Ota, Ogun State, has emerged as Nigeria’s best university, according to the 2025 world university rankings by the Times Higher Education (THE).

Covenant is also the only Nigerian university that made the top 1,000 list of world universities. The number of Nigerian universities in the top spot has decreased for the third consecutive year –from three in 2023 to two in 2024 and one in the latest ranking.

How they were ranked

The Times Higher Education (THE) said that universities were ranked based on the three main missions of university activity: research, teaching, and impact.

In calculating the points, THE said it used 18 “carefully calibrated performance indicators” grouped into five areas. They are Teaching (the learning environment), Research environment (volume, income, and reputation), Research Quality (citation impact, research strength, research excellence, and research influence), International outlook (staff, students, and research), and Industry (income and patents).

The Quality of Research takes 30 per cent of the points and the Research environment makes 29 per cent. Teaching makes up 29.5 per cent and International outlook 7.5 per cent. Meanwhile, a university’s ability to help industry with innovations, inventions and consultancy makes up 4 per cent of the points.

Top 10 Nigerian universities

The THE calculations listed these are the top-ten Nigerian universities in the 2025 rankings:

1. Covenant University (801-1000)
2. Ahmadu Bello University (1001–1200)
3. Landmark University (1001–1200)
4. University of Ibadan (1001–1200)
5. University of Lagos (1001–1200)
6. Bayero University (1201–1500)
7. Federal University of Technology Akure (1201–1500)
8. Federal University of Technology, Minna (1201–1500)
9. University of Benin (1201–1500)
10. University of Ilorin (1201–1500)