Nigeria’s Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, reportedly obtained a “fake” National Youths Service Corps exemption certificate the Premium Times reports.
In an exclusive report published on Saturday, Premium Times said Adeosun forged an exemption certificate many years after her graduation from the University of East London, Premium Times reports.
It was also alleged in the report that Adeosun’s official credentials show that she parades a purported NYSC exemption certificate, which was issued in September 2009, granting her exemption from the mandatory service on account of age.
Mrs Adeosun graduated from the Polytechnic of East London in 1989, at the age of 22. According to her curriculum vitae, Mrs Adeosun was born in March 1967.
The institution changed the name to the University of East London in 1992. Mrs Adeosun has her certificate issued in the new name.
Having graduated at 22, it is obligatory for Mrs Adeosun to participate in the one-year national service, for her to qualify for any job in Nigeria.
However, at the time of her graduation, the young Folakemi Oguntomoju, as she then was, did not return to Nigeria to serve her fatherland.
Upon graduation in 1989, the Applied Economics graduate pursued a fast-paced career in the British public and private sectors.
She first landed a job at British Telecoms, but left after a year to join Goodman Jones, an accounting and investment firm, as audit officer. She served there till 1993.
In 1994, Mrs Adeosun joined London Underground Company as Internal Audit Manager, before switching to Prism Consulting, a finance firm, where she worked between 1996 until 2000.
In 2000, Mrs Adeosun was hired by PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she worked for two years.
When she eventually returned to Nigeria in 2002, Mrs Adeosun still did not deem it necessary to participate in the NYSC scheme. She simply accepted a job offer at a private firm, Chapel Hill Denham.
However, ostensibly concerned that she might run into trouble for skipping the mandatory scheme, Mrs Adeosun, sometime in 2009, procured a fake exemption certificate.
The NYSC does not issue exemption certificate to anyone who, like the minister, graduates before turning 30, top officials of the scheme familiar with the matter told PREMIUM TIMES.
According to Premium Times, Adeosun’s certificate was purportedly signed by former NYSC DG Yusuf Bomoi and issued in September 2009. However, Bomoi, who passed in 2017, stepped down from his position in January 2009.
Adeosun has served as commissioner for finance in Ogun state (2011 – 2015) and was appointed minister of finance by President Muhammadu Buhari government following confirmation from the senate and security checks by the Department of State Services (DSS).
Premium Times states that “top officials” of the scheme have described the certificate as fake.
“This one is an Oluwole certificate. We did not issue it and we could not have issued it,” Premium Times quoted an official as saying. Oluwole is a location in Lagos known for document forgery.
Premium Times quoted another official as saying: “This is not the size of our exemption certificate. The calligraphy is also different.”
Premium Times said that the DSS failed to discover that the certificate is “fake” but the senate did and kept mum. The paper said:
The Senate, which received the fake certificate as part of the documents Mrs Adeosun submitted for her confirmation hearing, detected the discrepancy, PREMIUM TIMES understands.
But it nonetheless proceeded to clear her for the top office. Those familiar with the matter said the leadership of the National Assembly used that information to blackmail and extort Mrs Adeosun for years.
According to Premium Times, “a National Assembly cartel” used the “fake” certificate scandal “to coerce the finance minister to keep releasing funds to the lawmaking arm.” Recall that Adeosun had been enmeshed in a N10bn scandal involving the senate leaders.
The NYSC DG Sule Kazaure and Adeosun’s spokesperson Oluyinka Akintunde are yet to respond to comments from Premium Times.
