All you need to know about minister’s NYSC certificate scandal

Finance minister, Kemi Adeosun, has been under fire in the last couple of days, after Premium Times broke the story that she forged her NYSC exemption certificate.

Here’s a roundup of all that has happened since the story was publishedon Saturday, July 7, 2018...

1. According to Premium Times, Mrs. Adeosun graduated from university at the age of 22.

By Nigerian laws, you are only exempt from mandatorily serving your country for a year if you graduated from university after your 30th birthday.

2. Adeosun graduated from the Polytechnic of East London in 1989.

3. Adeosun’s CV as seen by Premium Times states that she was born in March 1967.

4. Adeosun’s name back in university was Folakemi Oguntomoju.

5. The Premium Times story reads that Adeosun graduated with a degree in Applied Economics.

6. She immediately chose to pursue a fast-paced career in the British public and private sectors.

7. She first landed a job at British Telecoms, but left a year later to join Goodman Jones, an accounting and investment firm, as audit officer. She served there till 1993.

8. In 1994, Mrs. Adeosun joined London Underground Company as an Internal Audit Manager, before switching to Prism Consulting, a finance firm, where she worked between 1996 until 2000.

9. In 2000, Mrs Adeosun was hired by PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she worked for two years.

10. The Premium Times story reads that: “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”.

11. The NYSC has responded by sayingMrs. Adeosun did apply for an exemption certificate. However, the scheme is yet to say if Mrs. Adeosun was granted an original exemption certificate.

12. An NYSC statement on the saga read as follows: “Our attention has been drawn to the issue of the alleged forgery of an NYSC Exemption Certificate by the Honorable Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.

“Checking our records, Mrs. Adeosun did apply for an Exemption Certificate.

“We shall investigate the origin of the purported Exemption Certificate in question.”

13. The police until someone files a formal complaint about it all at a police station.

14. Premium Times and TheCable reported on Tuesday that the NYSC is under intense pressure to grant the minister an authentic, backdated certificate or blame a late boss of the NYSC for the forged certificate.

The Premium Times report also stated that the national assembly used the forged NYSC certificate to blackmail Adeosun who had to part with billions of naira belonging to Nigeria, to satiate greedy lawmakers.

15. Mrs. Kemi Adeosun hasn’t uttered a word in defense since the story broke. She has remained silent through the drama.