MATTERS ARISING FROM MRS ADEOSUN'S SCANDAL
MATTERS ARISING FROM MRS ADEOSUN'S SCANDAL
By:
Nurudeen Dauda
September 16, 2018
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To begin with, now that the certificate forgery is official, for me, the most "shocking" issue in the Ex-Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun's scandal, is her clearance by the Department of State Services, DSS, without detecting that it was a fake exemption . For one to be a Minister he or she must pass the DSS background checks. No! No! Something is wrong somewhere !
The DSS in particular should have been thorough in its background checks! The DSS , especially now, that it has new leadership in place, must re-organize its internal workings. It must going forward leave no store unturned in its background checks if we are to get it right.
Another shocking revelation, is the alleged compromise by NYSC officials. Something must be done on this too. In my view, there is an institutional lapses or weaknesses or compromise and or all. No, no! This should not go scot -free. Someone has to pay the price.The NYSC should make its findings public and carry out appropriate sanction in order to protect its integrity and to serve as a deterrent.
Mrs Adeosun had also passed the screenings of Ogun State House of Assembly and that of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as Commissioner for and Minister of finance in 2011 and 2015. The legislature too must take its screening job very seriously.
The NYSC had earlier on admitted that Mrs Adeosun had indeed applied for an exemption. By the NYSC Act it was very wrong for she to have applied for exemption, much less gotten same.Was she ignorant of the Act? Ignorant of the law as they say is not an excuse. Well, the NYSC should have guided her.
Under the NYSC Act, for a person to be exempted from the scheme , the person must be above 30 years as at the time of graduation. She was born and brought up in UK. She graduated at the age of 22. She returned to Nigeria at the age of 34. It does not matter how old the person is, whether 60 or 70 when he or she later wants to serve provided he or she graduated before 30. So, what she should have done was to apply for mobilization not exemption. This lesson must be properly learnt by all Nigerians.
It is obvious that, the Minister resigned having been privy to the outcome of the NYSC investigation on the issue. I do not share the view that, the Minister be prosecuted, in view of the fact that, she drove us out of recession.
In my Judgement, Mrs Adeosun had performed credibly well in her assignment as a Minister of Finance. As a Minister of Finance, she paid all her salaries up to date. Under her watch the following initiatives were Introduced, namely : the Whistle Blower Policy, Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS), Presidential Initative on Continuous Audit (PICA) and Efficiency Unit (E-Unit). She also vigorously pursued the implementation of TSA and IPPIS which were iniated by the previous administrations. She financed the highest Capital Budget implementation of N1.58trillion in the history of Nigeria among others.
But unfortunately she had to go for bypassing the law. Whether knowingly or unknowingly is not the issue for now. Mrs Adeosun must have learnt her lessons. I do hope that the rest us too have learnt our lessons.
Finally, all the relevant agencies in the country should and or must wake up from their slumber. There are a lot of allegations of forgery in the country ranging from forged WAEC ,NECO, Indigine, and Primary school certificates. More so, Mrs Adeosun's case calls for a future thorough background checks by the operatives of DSS on appointees . Both the National and State Assemblies also need to be thorough on screenings of appointees.
May God bless Nigeria!