Adeosun, Obono-Obla’s certificate scandal, by Jerry Uwah

The federal government has maintained a deafening graveyard silence over the certificate scandals involving two of its key officials. Two months ago there were claims that Okoi Obono-Obla, chairman, Special Presidential Investigative Panel for the Recovery of Property entered the University of Jos to read law with a doctored West African School Certificate.
Registrar of the West African Examination Council (WAEC), issuer of the certificate now at the centre of the scandal told an ad-hoc committee of the House of Representatives that the certificate issued to Obono-Obla had been altered and therefore null and void.
The federal government has maintained a studied silence even as the House of Representatives opened its investigation into the scandal. Obono-Obla was more obedient than Babachir Lawal, the former secretary to the government of the federation who awarded the N200 million grass cutting contract to his computer company when the idle men in the internally displaced persons camp were looking for what to do to keep them busy.
Lawal had shunned the Senate Committee that investigated the matter. He was adamant to the end and was not moved even when the senate passed a guilty verdict on him.
Unlike Lawal, Obono-Obla honoured the invitation of the House committee investigating the scandal. Ironically, his employers have not said a word on the raging scam.
The federal government’s deafening silence over Obono-Obla’s certificate scandal was still rocking the nation when Premium Times, an on-line publication stormed into the scene with yet another certificate scandal. This time it was the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) exemption certificate brandished by Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, Nigeria’s minister of finance. Premium Times alleged that Mrs. Adeosun was working with a forged NYSC exemption certificate.
Again it was the media, not her employer or the National Assembly that spear-headed the investigation. Even the police washed its hands off what is largely seen as a grievous criminal offence by a sitting minister. The police said the minister cannot be arrested or investigated since no one has lodged complaints against her.
The legislature, an arm of government mired in a shooting war with the executive, is strangely silent about Adeosun’s certificate scandal. Speculation making the rounds is that the minister has been sufficiently blackmailed into financial co-operation with the lawmakers. No one can prove that point, but the uneasy calm under a frosty relation with the executive tends to lend credence to the rumour.
When the media pounded NYSC with enquiries about the status of Mrs. Adeosun’s exemption certificate, the response was a classic civil service release cast in diplomatic ambiguity. NYSC admitted that the minister applied for exemption certificate and that the certificate she is brandishing was being investigated.
It was a retired director of NYSC that exposed the scandal in the minister’s certificate saga. He lamented that the minister’s exemption certificate was signed by a director-general of NYSC who left service some nine months earlier.
The truth in the gathering storm over Adeosun’s exemption certificate is that since she graduated at the age of 22, she automatically is not qualified for an exemption certificate. The retired director who exposed the scam said that NYSC’s enabling law makes it mandatory for anyone graduating below the age of 30 to serve in the scheme. He argued that if someone graduated abroad at age 22 and returns to the country at 60, he or she must serve in the scheme to qualify for a job in Nigeria.
Given that provision of the NYSC enabling law, Mrs. Adeosun does not qualify for an exemption certificate. Consequently, the NYSC statement that she applied for the certificate clearly indicts her. Even if the exemption certificate she is holding was issued by a sitting director-general of NYSC, it is illegal and cannot clear her for a job in Nigeria. She should have served in the scheme when she returned to Nigeria even if she was above 30.
The federal government’s silence in the two certificate scandals is a huge dent on the faltering war against corruption. Government is going to equity with soiled hands. Corruption does not begin and end with stealing public funds. Those working with forged certificates are as corrupt as those who looted the treasury and rendered Africa’s largest economy the global headquarters of poverty.
Lai Mohammed, the minister of information carefully dodged the scandal. He argued rather tepidly that government had spoken on the matter through NYSC. When did an NYSC spokesman become Nigeria’s minister of information?
Nigeria is the only country where crime is given ethnic or religious toga and swept under the carpet.
In the comity of civilized nation’s Adeosun and Obono-Obla would have resigned before their employers had time to work out damage control measures. Tatana Mala, the newly appointed attorney-general of Czech Republic, resigned within weeks of assuming office when the media published stories indicting her over plagiarism in the thesis she submitted for her post graduate degree. She did not wait for the government to probe her.
Adeosun and Obono-Obla can save the federal government’s tottering image by following the path of honour. No one would prosecute them. Nigeria has a history of celebrating high profile criminals and confining those who steal goats to overcrowded prisons. Adeosun and Obono-Obla must resign.