PREMIUM TIMES can authoritatively report
Nigeria’s Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, did not participate in the mandatory one-year national youth service scheme. Instead, she forged an exemption certificate many years after graduation, PREMIUM TIMES can emperorbusiness.com authoritatively report.
The year-long service,
organised by the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC), is compulsory for all
Nigerians who graduate from universities or equivalent institutions at less
than 30 years of age.
In addition to being a
requirement for government and private sector jobs in Nigeria, the enabling law
prescribes punishment for anyone who absconds from the scheme or forges its
certificates.
Eligible Nigerians who skipped the
expressinfotech.com service are liable to be sentenced to 12
months imprisonment and/or N2,000 fine, according to Section 13 of the NYSC
law.
Section 13 (3) of the law also prescribes three-year jail term or option of
N5,000 fine for anyone who contravenes provision of the law as Mrs Adeosun has
done.
Subsection 4 of the same section also financetechnews.net criminalises giving false information or
illegally obtaining the agency’s certificate. It provides for up to three-year
jail term for such offenders.
Mrs Adeosun’s official
credentials obtained by PREMIUM TIMES show that the minister parades a
purported NYSC exemption certificate, which was issued in September 2009,
granting her exemption from the mandatory service on account of age.
HOW IT HAPPENED
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
name to 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 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.
Mrs Adeosun’s
‘certificate’ is dated September 9, 2009, and was purportedly signed by Yusuf
Bomoi, a former director-general of the corps.
Officials said Mr. Bomoi stepped down from the NYSC in January 2009, and could
not have signed any certicate for the corps eight months after. The retired
brigadier general passed on in September 2017.
ILLEGAL JOBS
Using that fake
certificate, Mrs Adeosun went on to clinch high-profile jobs at Quo Vadis
Partnerships (managing director), Ogun State Government (commissioner for
finance), and Federal Government of Nigeria (minister of finance).
By the provision of
Section 12 of the NYSC Act, employers must demand NYSC certificates from
prospective employees. The law also mandates employees to present only genuine
certificates for that purpose.
Section 12 of the Act
reads:
“For the purposes of
employment anywhere in the Federation and before employment, it shall be the
duty of every prospective employer to demand and obtained from any person who
claims to have obtained his first degree at the end of the academic year
1973-74 or, as the case may be, at the end of any subsequent academic year the
following:-
a. a copy of the Certificate of National Service of such person issued pursuant
to section 11 of this Decree
b. a copy of any exemption certificate issued to such person pursuant to
section 17 of this Decree
c. such other particulars relevant there to as may be prescribed by or under
this Decree.”
A lawyer, Sagir Gezawa,
described jobs Mrs Adeosun has had in Nigeria as illegal.
“The combined effect of
sections 12 and 13 of the NYSC Act is that it is illegal to hire a person who graduated
but failed to make himself or herself available to serve, or falsify any
document to the effect that he or she has served or exempted from serving.”
However, without demanding or verifying the veracity of the certificate
presented by Mrs Adeosun, two Nigerian companies, the Ogun State Government and
the Federal Government of Nigeria employed her at various times.
On becoming governor in 2011, Ibikunle Amosun nominated her into his cabinet.
She proceeded to serve as commissioner of finance for four years.
The State Security Service, charged with vetting appointees to top government positions, failed to detect that her NYSC certificate was fake.
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