Now, who and who are behind, verified Adeosun’s fake certificate

 

Now, who and who are behind, verified Adeosun’s fake certificate

 

Finally, Kemi Adeosun has resigned as Nigeria’s Finance Minister. A couple of weeks ago, an online news platform based in Nigeria, Premium Times, broke a story, insisting that Adeosun forged her National Youth Service Corps exemption certificate. This case lingered in the media until Adeosun was ‘forced’ to resign on Friday. She said that she did not know that she was carrying a face certificate all along. She has reportedly left the country and back to her base in the United Kingdom. The media space in Nigeria should be proud of a campaign that succeeded. It will serve as a deterrent to some unscrupulous others.

ALSO READ:

Adeosun keeps mum, charged to court over alleged NYSC certificate scandal

However, there is another angle to this. What is the fate of other accomplices in this certificate forgery saga? If Nigeria actually wants to set a precedence for the fear of the law, Nigerians should ask further questions such as: what is the role of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in whole story, bearing in mind that Adeosun as well as the NYSC confessed that Adeosun actually wrote to NYSC, seeking a certificate of exemption? How did the NYSC treat that letter or request from Adeosun? Who is the bad egg in the NYSC who, instead of telling Adeosun that she was not qualified for exemption, went ahead and compromised and gave her a face certificate? Nigerians should be interested in this side of the story.

Second, before Adeosun became a Commissioner in Ogun State, she was screened by the State Assembly in 2011. What happened in that process of screening? Who fooled who? To be best of our knowledge, Adeosun was screened and cleared to become a Commissioner of Finance. If Adeosun’s certificate was fake, why did the SSS operatives and the State Assembly officials abate it. That means that the security operatives and some highly placed individuals in the state must have done some under dealings.

Third, when Adeosun was nominated to be a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2015, she went through the security checks at the National Assembly. These included a sift through her credentials including the NYSC certificate. Who and who screened Adeosun? What was the report of the screening? Who ordered that Adeosun should be inaugurated despite the (if any) damaging observation about her NYSC certificate?

Premium Times even hinted that some officials in the National Assembly knew that Adeosun’s certificate was forged but they preferred to use that as a conduit to rip her off and curry favour from her to stopping her nomination. If these are true, then, Premium TIMES and indeed the media community in still has a lot of work to do to establish what they stand for.   

Although ignorance is no excuse to the law, Adesoun sounded ignorant of the law. In the principle of good conscience, Adeosun’s detractors or collaborators, whichever one they are must be brought to question. She said in her resignation letter: “I have, today, become privy to the findings of the investigation into the allegation made in an online medium that the Certificate of Exemption from National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) that I had presented was not genuine. This has come as a shock to me and I believe that in line with this administration’s focus on integrity, I must do the honourable thing and resign.

Your Excellency, kindly permit me to outline some of the background to this matter. I was born and raised in the United Kingdom, indeed my parental family home remains in London. My visits to Nigeria up until the age of thirty-four (34) were holidays, with visas obtained in my UK passport. I obtained my first Nigerian passport at the age of thirty-four (34) and when I relocated there was debate as to whether NYSC Law applied to me. Upon enquiry as to my status relating to NYSC, I was informed that due to my residency history and having exceeded the age of thirty (30), I was exempted from the requirement to serve. Until recent events, that remained my understanding.

On the basis of that advice and with the guidance and assistance of those, I thought were trusted associates, NYSC were approached for documentary proof of status. I then received the certificate in question. Having never worked in NYSC, visited the premises, been privy to nor familiar with their operations, I had no reason to suspect that the certificate was anything but genuine. Indeed, I presented that certificate at the 2011 Ogun State House of Assembly and in 2015 for Directorate of State Services (DSS) Clearance as well as to the National Assembly for screening. Be that as it may, as someone totally committed to a culture of probity and accountability I have decided to resign with effect from Friday, 14th September, 2018”.

For any crime to be perpetrated, there must be a link from one point to the other. Nigerians should be interested in these links in order to set the record straight.

To us, it is not enough that Adeosun has resigned. No, it is not enough. Everyone who played a role in causing what has become a national shame should come to question. As it is now, some criminals in this case are walking free and this is not supposed to be.