Nigerians have expressed outrage over the certificate forgery by Nigeria’s Minister of Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji, saying the minister should be arrested and prosecuted.
A painstaking two-year investigation published by PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday revealed that Mr Nnaji forged the credentials he submitted to President Bola Tinubu and the Nigerian Senate during his ministerial confirmation in 2023.
Allegations of certificate forgery have dogged Mr Nnaji since July 2023, when President Tinubu named him among the first batch of 28 ministerial nominees from 25 states forwarded to the Senate as part of the president’s initial cabinet list, two months after taking office on 29 May 2023.
Critics have long insisted that Mr Nnaji did not complete his university education and that both the bachelor’s degree and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate he presented to President Tinubu and the offices of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the State Security Service, and the Senate were forged.
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The findings of PREMIUM TIMES’ extensive examination of the documents were damning and conclusive: both the degree certificate and the NYSC discharge certificate in the minister’s possession are outright forgeries.
This newspaper reported on Sunday that the minister has admitted that the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) never issued him a degree certificate.
Outrage over minister’s forgeries
A Facebook user, Ugo Egbujo, condemned Mr Nnaji for presenting forged certificates to the Nigerian authorities.
“Nnaji needs to confront the story by the Premium Times. Silence is not golden,” Mr Egbujo wrote.
An X user, Kayode Abraham, said the development suggests that “criminals” now work everywhere in government agencies and ministries.
“This is why we have policy somersault, inadequacy, deficiency, ineffectiveness and non-performance at the end of the day,” Mr Abraham wrote.
“Quality service and governance are seriously lacking, giving way to poverty & penury of the masses.”
Another X user, Brendan Champion, criticised Mr Nnaji for the forgery.
Champion, who claimed to have graduated from UNN, demanded the minister’s resignation.
“I can’t be carrying original UNN degree results and be doing multiple jobs to provide for my family, and someone is allegedly carrying a fake one and has free access to free hundreds of billions,” Champion wrote. “He should resign.”
Dayo Aiyetan, founder of International Centre for Investigative Reporting, said Mr Nnaji’s certificate forgery was an “an indictment” of the Nigerian Senate which often tells nominees for public office to “take a bow and go” without proper scrutiny.
“President BolaTinubu (@officialABAT) must not only sack his rogue, criminal minister, he (Nnaji) must be arrested and prosecuted for serial forgery, which is a criminal offence,” Mr Aiyetan wrote on his X handle on Sunday.
“This isn’t a mistake — it’s criminal deception,” another X user, (@SirOdigie), wrote on his handle on Sunday.
“Uche Nnaji should be arrested, prosecuted, and banned from public office. Enough of this fraud in govt!”
