Time to halt and deal with certificate forgery, forgers
M. U. Ndagi
One ominous evil that is fast progressing to destroy the ethical foundations of the Nigerian society is certificate forgery, which if not tackled now, could develop to become the third most intractable challenge in the country; after insecurity and corruption. In any given human society where political, economic, academic and other aspirations are driven by desperation, it’s easily predictable that forgery would dislodge hard work, patience and hope in the life of its citizens.
Just last week, the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Technology, Geoffrey Uche Nnaji who was appointed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in August 2023, resigned his appointment. This followed allegations of certificate forgery after investigations by PREMIUM TIMES revealed that the bachelor’s degree certificate, which he claimed to have earned from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) aa well as his National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) discharge certificate, are both forged documents.
Nigerians had no trouble relying on the statement issued by the NYSC authorities, which after the forgery allegations became public knowledge, never minced words in clarifying that the certificate of national service being flaunted by Nnaji was strange to it and could not be authenticated. However, those who followed the story from the onset found it hard to believe the UNN when it scandalously disowned the Bachelor of Science degree certificate in the possession of the Minister; saying “he did not complete his studies at the institution and was never issued a certificate” after the same university had earlier corroborated Uche Nnaji’s claims of being a graduate of the institution.
This claim-and-denial game played by the UNN authorities on Uche Nnaji’s certificate is so disreputable that it should not be ignored and swept under the carpet. It, once again, brings to fore how some of Nigeria’s academic institutions recklessly compromise public trust and confidence vested in them. Had PREMIUM TIMES not remained steadfast to carry its investigations beyond all doubts, Uche Nnaji like others who have not been detected and are unlikely to be, would continue to enjoy the privileges of what he never earned.
The next question is: How did Uche Nnaji as a nominee for appointment as a cabinet minister scale through the screening processe at the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Senate with his forged certificates? While it’s plausible for the DSS and even the Senate to have relied on UNN’s initial validation of Nnaji’s certificate and consequently cleared him, it should never have taken the university’s assertions for granted given the broad-spectrum character that nowadays define most Nigerians as ever-desperate people. More so, the DSS which as a counter intelligence agency is believed to be equipped with statutory art and professional astuteness to go beyond surface scrutiny, should have gone further to carry out some discreet and ‘back-end’ checks at the UNN if only to forestall the attendant consequences that come with forgery cases when uncovered.
The Senate which also screened Nnaji with forged credentials should dutifully consider the screening of nominees for appointment into public offices as a critical national assignment that should not be ridiculed to the dimension which the unethical tradition of “Take a bow and go” has assumed. Screening of nominees is an exercise that goes beyond the fulfilment of all righteousness.
Notwithstanding whether or not their separate judgements of Nnaji’s certificates were based on a faulty groundwork, Nigerians expect public apology from all the agencies and institutions involved in the screening of Uche Nnaji before his appointment as a minister. Meanwhile, government is urged to set up an investigation panel to probe how the UNN authorities provided misleading information on Nnaji’s graduation at first instance. Geoffrey Nnaji, too, should be prosecuted over the forgery, which spuriously facilitated his appointment into a public office that he should never have held.
Given the endemic prevalence of certificate forgery since 1990s, the civil service and many educational institutions (public and private) in the country have become the hub of fake credentials. Ever since Prof Farook Kperogi’s exposure of a fake professor in one of Nigeria’s public universities many years ago, we have also not stopped hearing of fake PhD holders. It would also be recalled how a fake medical doctor once used someone’s MBBS degree certificate, secured employment at the federal ministry of health and remained undetected in the service until he had risen to become an assistant director. Today, you hear of fake patients, fake destitute, fake IDPs, fake journalists, fake lawyers, fake engineers, fake soldiers, and fake clerics. It would not be strange, too, to hear of fake husbands and fake wives.
In 2004, a school proprietor in Abuja invited me to come and verify the academic credentials of all the teaching staff on its payroll. Without writing to the issuing institutions to validate the certificates documented in the file of each staff, my career knowledge and experience led and guided me to detect that eighteen out of the twenty-three staff in the teaching employment of the school had fake certificates. It was easy for me to sort out fake certificates because I only had to look out for the usual format and seals that are typical of academic credentials, which forgers are most often unaware of.
The absence of seals, the use of irregular format, and the sighting of grammatical errors in a statement of result should raise suspicions in its genuineness. For example, an NCE statement result that was signed by the students’ affairs officer of a college of education suggests it is fake because only academic secretaries in such institutions (and even in universities) sign academic records.
This is why the federal government deserves commendation for recently moving against certificate forgers with a directive to all Ministries, Departments, Agencies, military and paramilitary formations to enforce mandatory verification of all academic credentials of staff members. It is time to deploy modern technology to halt and deal with certificate forgery and forgers in Nigeria.
Like all other MDAs, the implementation and success of this exercise would first require schools, colleges, and institutions to digitize the academic records of all their graduates; beginning from their date of inception. As the government prepares to establish the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD), which is essentially a centralized digital platform that would store, manage, preserve, and verify educational records, publications, and credentials from all tiers of the system, we pray that Allah (SWT) inspires Nigerians who would be in charge of the NERD to eschew anything that would undermine or compromise the essence of the policy, Amin.
