Marketing guru Azizan Osman has claimed that he was targeted and misled by parties who were not representatives of Universiti Malaya (UM) on the award of an honorary doctorate.

He said he had lodged a police report over the fake honorary doctorate purportedly from UM and the matter is currently under investigation.

"With regards to the honorary doctorate from Universiti Malaya, it has come to our attention that Azizan Osman had been unfortunately targeted and misled by parties who were not representatives of the university," he said through a statement released by his company Richworks International Sdn Bhd, which was also published on his Facebook page, today.

Not only that, Azizan clarified that he has held a science doctorate in metaphysics from Gordon University, Florida since 2009.

He has also recently completed the requirements for a philosophy doctorate in psychology from University of Hertfordshire, UK, he added, and the convocation will take place soon.

"During an internal inquiry process that we recently conducted, we uncovered some severe shortcomings in our operating procedures.

"Regrettably, these shortcomings have also led to the inclusion of doctorates from Universiti Infrastruktur Kuala Lumpur (IUKL) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in reference to Azizan Osman, which he has never professed to have," he said.

His company, he said, has put a comprehensive plan in place to immediately correct the situation.

UM had denied that it awarded an honorary doctorate to Azizan after there were social media postings alleging that he obtained on in entrepreneurship from UM.

Azizan had said that he would be seeking clarification on this matter.

Following that, IUKL and UKM had said they also never issued any degrees or doctorates to Azizan, as were depicted on his website.