Uche Nnaji’s forgery allegation: Lawyer advises President Tinubu, commends arrest

By Matilda Ikediobi

Mr Liborous Oshoma is a lawyer. In this interview monitored on Channels TV, Oshoma spoke on the alleged certificate forgery issue against former Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji.

What are your thoughts, legally speaking, about the Department of State Services, DSS, arresting him and handing him over to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC?

First, we must thank, I think it was Premium Times that actually did a very detailed investigative investigation on this matter and broke the news. Typical of our politician, at the initial stage, there was a whole lot of grandstanding from him. He even submitted a petition to the Minister of Education for investigation against the University of Nigeria Nsukka on the grounds that they illegally altered his certificate and disclosed it to third parties. I think it was a 32 or 24 member panel that was set up, and after investigation, they came up with the fact that truly, the certificate was not only forged, but the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC also. So, the issue now is, if you use all of this certificate to get appointments from Federal Government, and all through that time, you drew salaries from office, under the presumption that you truly graduated from that university, shouldn’t it be normal that federal government should also be asking for the action that he took while in office? Because it’s like impersonation, you are impersonating a graduate. The salaries that he drew from office, he should return those salaries, and then, also, even though there’s presumption of regularity in his favour, whilst at the time he was minister, there was presumption that, yes, truly, every other thing had been done, but the question now is that there were certain actions that he took in office, that federal government also needs to look at.

There are also the political issues on the ground in Enugu State, and they will say there are forces and counter-forces. Is this man battling a political matter, or this is just purely a matter of alleged illegality around his record?

They say he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. I would not want to dwell on the politics of it. There might be politics. Certainly, if you have skeletons in your cupboard, your opponent will latch onto those skeletons, expose them and highlight them. I was not the one that said Nnaji should present a forged certificate, as concluded by the panel set up by the Minister of Education. There were allegations by the Premium Times, and the Minister wrote a petition to the Minister of Education, and it was investigated. The committee came up with a dummy report saying that, indeed, the former Minister forged his certificate and forged the NYSC certificate, because, I remember, the man said he served NYSC even before he was alleged to have graduated. That was what actually raised the red flag. So, in this case, if it has been established, I had, in one of my interviews, called for his arrest and prosecution to serve as a deterrent. Now, we are talking about politics around the corner. We are talking about campaigns. We are talking about people who are going to present themselves for office. If the All Progressives Congress, APC, wants to show that they are not a party that is inhabited by certificate forgers, this is one such opportunity for them to prosecute. Whether politics is involved, whether his opponents want to latch onto it, that is entirely left to him, because a man who brought ant-infested wood to his house, invited chicken to be his playmate. It is an Igbo proverb.

There are accusations of him evading arrest. These are some of the details entailed in the statement made by the agencies involved. Isn’t evasion of arrest an offence? Also, don’t forget that this is a minister that served under this administration. How did he get through DSS and Senate screening?

It’s quite unfortunate. This comes to question our screening methods, both at the DSS level and at the Senate level. And then, this attitude of, do you know who I am? The ICPC, from what we gathered, had extended several invitations to him, and the man had refused to honour their invitation on the grounds that, well, do you know who I am? Do you know you are talking to a former minister? I resigned myself and I signed the petition. So, the heavens cannot fall. I like the fact that government is taking this seriously, because a lot of people have been pointing an accusing figure at the president, that the president probably is condoning him, because in the last election, in the campaign, there were issues raised around the president’s certificate. So, because of that, people will insinuate. So, that is why people like this can serve in the government. So, if those issues are there and have not been answered, then certainly somebody like this can be condoned and be allowed to go free. It also calls to question the kind of screening, the kind of methodology deployed by our DSS during screening. If DSS has screened this man and given him a clean bill of health, and yet, journalists unearthed his certificate that he did not graduate, and all of those documents were in the public space. For me, it was an embarrassment, not just to government, but to us Nigerians.

Imagine travelling abroad, and you are sitting down with four journalists from international media organisations such as BBC and CNN, and the next question somebody poses to you is you are from Nigeria, where we learnt that a serving minister forged his certificate to serve in government, and forged his NYSC certificate. Do you know how embarrassing that would be to you as a journalist? Yet, DSS cleared this minister. That is the highest security body that we have, a covert security body, cleared this minister. The ICPC is calling you to come, at least state your own side of the story, but you went AWOL, with the do you know who I am mentality. And that’s why I like the fact that this is not just an ordinary person, because if it was an ordinary person, they would smoke him out quickly. Now, he has been arrested by DSS. We need to see prosecution immediately, and some of us will follow up this matter and ensure that we see it to the endk. Whether people are playing politics with this, for me, it’s immaterial and irrelevant.

Whether the opposition wants to latch on this, he brought this upon himself. The president should not allow all these powerful people in government to intervene so as to give this man a soft landing because when that happens, it will boomerang on him. People would say what you expect from a Tinubu government. If people are also making allegations about his (president’s) certificate, certainly, they would give such a man, who has a questionable certificate, a soft landing. That is why I think government, the Attorney General of the Federation, should also be invested in this matter.