Nigeria at the moment is dogged by the issue of certificate forgery involving her leaders, which unfortunately, casts the nation’s image in a bad light abroad. ONYEKACHI EZE examines this hydra- headed issue
In February this year, Texas Board of Nursing in the United States launched what it called “Operation Nightingale,” in which a total of 43 Nigerian nurses practising abroad were accused of forging their qualifying certificates. According to one of the reports, charges were filed against 18 of them for fraudulently obtaining their educational credentials.
The nurses were accused of participating in a wire fraud scheme that created an illegal licensing and employment shortcut for aspiring nurses. The accused were alleged to have fraudulently sold nursing degree diplomas and transcripts obtained from accredited Florida-based nursing schools, to individuals seeking licenses and jobs as registered nurses and licensed practical/vocational nurses.
The fake diplomas and transcripts would qualify purchasers to sit for the national nursing board exam and, after passing it, to obtain licenses and jobs in various states in America as registered nurses and licensed practical/ vocational nurses. A US attorney Markenzy Lapointe, said the act “erodes public trust in our healthcare system,” adding that “Not only is this a public safety concern, it also tarnishes the reputation of nurses who actually complete the demanding clinical and course work required to obtain their professional licenses and employment.”
Early this month, October, it was again discovered that 48 out of the 515 professional Nigerian nurses who applied for registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the regulator for nursing and midwifery professions in the United Kingdom (UK), fraudulently obtained their computer-Based Test (CBT). The test was conducted at Yunnik Technologies in Ibadan, Oyo State, where there was “evidence of extensive fraudulent activity uncovered in connection with its CBT services.”
The report published by the Nursing Standard, a UK journal, said the NMC later discovered that hundreds of Nigerian applicants had fraudulently obtained results from Yunnik Technologies. To this end, more than 1,950 candidates who carry results obtained from the Ibadan-based test centre are expected to retake the test. Said the publication, “Each of them will now be referred to an investigating committee to determine if they gained fraudulent entry to the register.
They will be offered three chances to take and pass a new CBT and will be given the opportunity to provide the investigating committee with information about the circumstances in which they took the initial test at Yunnik. “If they are found to have fraudulently gained registration, they will be removed from the register. All other CBT results are being treated as invalid.
The remaining 467 professionals on the register who took the test at the centre will need to resit the test.” All these were happening at a time the Chicago State University (CSU), disowned the certificate attached by President Bola Tinubu on his nomination form that was submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2023 presidential election. Caleb Westberg, CSU’s Registrar, in his deposition under oath last month, said the president neither applied for a replacement of his certificate nor received one.
Westberg’s testimony was in connection with the request by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to the institution, on the identity of Tinubu who attended the CSU. He acknowledged some discrepancies in the president’s documents. First, an error in his date of birth. Whereas he admitted to have seen the entry on All Progressives Congress (APC) website “wherein President Bola Tinubu was said to have been born in Lagos on March 29, 1952, our records show that he was born on March 29th; one has ‘1954’ while the other shows ‘1952’”.
The registrar however stated that “From time to time, people do make mistakes when making such entries. The entries ‘1952’ and ‘1954’ could have been made in error.” Another discrepancy is on the sex of the candidate. Westberg said there was an entry ‘F’, (which stands for female) in the President’s admission form, but further argued that “the SSN entered indicated in the Southwest transcript is the same as the one that was indicated in CSU records.
That is one of the indications that we use to identify students; Social Security is a unique identifier. “It was possible that someone assumed Bola to be a female and therefore marked the Southwest Transcript as such.” Kalu Kalu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who is one of the lawyers of Atiku, was more forthcoming on the documents the CSU registrar deposed in court. Kalu said the documents Westberg deposed for showed that the president allegedly forged the certificate he presented to INEC.
According to him, the qualifying certificates from Southwest College, which he alleged the president used to secure admission into Chicago State University, “bears a female (name) indicating that the document does not belong to Bola Ahmed Tinubu. “Also, the CSU admission application form has a claim that Bola Ahmed Tinubu attended Government College, Lagos and graduated in 1970 when indeed, the school was established in 1974.
“The same document has it that the owner of that document is a black American, and in the document Bola Ahmed Tinubu submitted to INEC, he denied having dual citizenship, which means it does not belong to him. “The same document under deposition says that the ‘A’ (in ) Bola A Tinubu is Ahmed. But the NYSC certificate Bola Ahmed Tinubu submitted to INEC has Adekunle.” Qualifying certificates has become an issue in Nigeria politics since the return of democracy in the country in 1999.
The Speaker of the first National Assembly, Salisu Buhari, was forced to resign, and subsequently sent to prison because he forged his age and university certificate. Buhari claimed to have a degree from Toronto University, which turned out to be false. It was also discovered that he was below 30 years of age at the time he was elected into the National Assembly, a violation of the 1999 constitution.
At the Senate, there was a similar allegation against the President of the Senate Evan Enwerem; this was with regard to his proper name, ‘Evan’ or ‘Evans’. It was believed that his removal from office on November 18, 1999, five months into his inauguration, was in connection with this identity crisis. Tinubu’s certificate issue was raised in 1999 as well, when his nomination form when he was contest governorship of Lagos State, showed that he obtained a B.Sc degree in Economics from the University of Chicago, instead of Chicago State University.
This error was blamed on his associate, Tokunbo Afikuyomi while filing his nomination form. The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), stipulates that to qualify to contest any election into the executive or legislative arm, the candidate shall be “educated up to at least school certificate or its equivalent.”
Aside the controversy surrounding President Tinubu’s academic qualification, a number of federal and state lawmakers in the present dispensation, have been sacked by election tribunals, because it was discovered that they presented fake or forged certificates to INEC to stand for the election. Among the lawmakers are Idris Dankawu of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in Kano State, who the tribunal said he forged his West African School Certificate (WAEC) which he submitted for election into the Kumbotso Federal House of Representatives Constituency of Kano State.
His challenger, Munir Babba Danagudi of the APC had filed a petition, alleging that Dankawu presented a fraudulent secondary school certificate to gain admission into Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, Kaduna. The election of another NNPP lawmaker Muktar Umar Yerima, also from Kano State, was again nullified due to the alleged forgery of his primary school certificate, which had been submitted to INEC.
His challenger, Hafizu Kawu of the APC, was declared winner of the election. There was also a case of Aminu Ahmadu Chindo and Ismail Dalha, both of PDP in Katsina State whose elections were nullified by the tribunal over primary school certificate forgery. These nullifications are however subject to appeal, and an Appeal Court had already reinstated one of them, however, the image of the country is badly bruised when the President and elected representatives are involved in certificate forgery.
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) Mr. Peter Obi said the identity crisis involving President Tinubu has further worsened Nigeria’s less-than-glorious image abroad. Obi said he felt embarrassed responding to questions from audiences and individuals about Nigeria’s credibility as a nation. “Outsiders now see every other Nigerian as a potential fraudster, certificate forger, or identity thief,” he said.
The issue at the moment is before the Supreme Court, which will commence sitting tomorrow. But the incontestable fact is that there is identity crisis surrounding the Nigerian president. And Obi believes the president is the only one who can solve it. According to Obi, the president should “immediately and personally mount the rostrum of his present high office to perform a simple task once and for all time.
“He should re-introduce himself to the nation he governs and to the world for the avoidance of further doubt. “He should let the world know his name, nationality, his place of birth, his parentage, the primary and secondary schools he attended with dates, as well as the actual universities he attended and certificates obtained. “He should indicate clearly where and when he did his National Youth Service.
In addition, if at any time he has had a change of name, he should clearly state so and the circumstances.” This is a simple but difficult task. Tinubu may not be the only one involved in this. The PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar may not have to provide a satisfactory answer to Nigerians how his WAEC certificate bore ‘Sadiqu’. The Nigerian Constitution is clear on the issue of eligibility for presidential election.
Section 137 (1) (J) of the 1999 Constitution as amended in 2010 provides that ‘a person shall not be qualified for election to the of- fice of President if he has presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission.’ How this embarrassing development will pan out currently lies before the Supreme Court. Some have argued that perhaps, Nigeria should adopt the US model of ‘transcript’, and de-emphasis the use of certification as a measure of academic qualification.
This will solve a lot of issues, not only within the political circle, but in the civil service. Many unqualified persons may be occupying high offices in the nation’s civil service, simply because the emphasis is on paper qualification. Like Obi also said, there are “leaders all over the world who did not have formal education. The best American President, didn’t go through formal education, and he is highly respected, (Abraham) Lincoln. In the UK it was a similar thing (Wilson) Churchill, he was not a good student in school…”
However, the impact of this certificate scandal is imagination on the nation and its image in the international arena. Observers feel that just like the Nigerian passport is viewed with some level of scorn, certificates issued here may soon begin to receive similar level of disdain abroad. Professor of International Relations and former Nigeria’s Ambassador plenipotentiary, Prof Alaba Ogunsanwo, said politicians’ action in this regard is not only very unfortunate, but it constitute dents on Nigeria’s image in the international arena, and might henceforth make institutions abroad to be circumspect about certificates issued in Nigeria.
“I was taken aback today (Friday), when I read that the President Bola Tinubu has filed an application before a United States District Court of Columbia to stop the country’s agencies from releasing records related to his residence in the country,” he said. According to reports, the defendants in the suit are the Executive Office for US Attorneys, US Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), US Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, US Drug Enforcement Administration and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The US agencies had reportedly claimed that the details of the president’s files would not be made public until 2026 for what was termed “unusual circumstances”, the applicants have continued to push for the early release of the documents. In the motion for Admission of Attorney Pro Hac Vice dated October 18, 2023 by Brian A. Carey, sought to admit Christopher Carmichael as an attorney in the matter, adding that he is in good standing in the courts and bars of “the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, State of Illinois, the United States Courts of Appeal for the Seventh and Eighth Circuits, and the U.S. District Courts for the Northern Central and Southern Districts of Illinois.”
President Tinubu had earlier filed as an intervenor in a similar application by former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar before another court in Illinois, USA seeking the release of his academic records from the Chicago State University (CSU). However, Justice Nancy Maldonado overruled him and ordered the release of the documents under deposition from the institution and Atiku has since sought to tender the same before the Supreme Court in Nigeria in aid of his petition appeal over the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.
Ogunsanwo said all these actions are very unhealthy for the image of Nigeria, especially “our Nigerian passport is viewed with opprobrium at major airports around the world. This current certificate scandal by politicians will further worsen our image.”
