An exemption certificate obtained by PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday morning has further rubbished the authenticity of the purported NYSC certificate being paraded by Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun.
By the provision of the National Youths Service Act, some categories of Nigerians are eligible for exemption from the mandatory service.
However, Mrs. Adeosun remains ineligible because she does not satisfy any of the requirements for eligibility.
After a three-month investigation, PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday published details of how the finance minister submitted a fake NYSC’s exemption certificate to the Nigerian authorities after she skipped the mandatory national service upon graduation at 22.
Details published by this newspaper on Monday showed that the questionable certificate was among credentials submitted by Mrs. Adeosun to facilitate her appointment and screening in 2015.
On Friday this newspaper reported how the National Assembly used the certificate mess as a tool for blackmail to get undue favors from the minister. The minister had variously released money illegally to the lawmakers and funded projects not approved by the presidency. The scandal has generated outrage from Nigerians who asked the minister to resign from her post or be fired by President Muhammadu Buhari.
DISCREPANCIES
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 certificate for the corps eight months after. The retired brigadier general passed on in September 2017.
A number of NYSC certificates for the latter part of 2009 sighted by our reporters carried the signature of Maharazu I Tsiga, the brigadier general appointed into the position by President Umaru Yar’Adua.
A number of retired and serving NYSC personnel, as enumerated in our earlier story published on Saturday, pointed out many discrepancies in Mrs. Adeosun’s ‘certificate’.
Some of the discrepancies identified include a font of the serial number, the calligraphy, size of the certificate and the signatory.
BETWEEN FAKE VERSUS ORIGINAL
A Certificate of Exemption issued in July 2009, two months before Mrs Adeosun obtained her own, was obtained by PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday.
A cursory look at the certificate reveals a document that is completely different from what the minister presented for her appointment in late 2015.
On a close look at the two documents, PREMIUM TIMES identified about ten differences that stand out the fake from the original. Some of the discrepancies identified corroborated the verdicts passed by NYSC officials as reported earlier.
The serial number placed at the top right-hand side of the certificate, appear different. The font characters are different, so also are their placements, with the one on the fake one farther away from the edges.
The numbering sequence also suggests that the fake certificate has doctored numbering. The original is numbered 000131816 (one hundred and thirty-one thousand, eight hundred and sixteen) while the numbers in the doctored one, instead of going up, comparable to the period between the two dates of issue, nosedived to 000048932 (Forty-eight thousand, nine hundred and thirty-two)
The fourth difference comes in the line reading “Certificate of Exemption” while the wordings are bold in the certificate issued in July, in Mrs. Adeosun’s that was issued in September, the characters were not emboldened.
Additionally, the “T” beginning the line; “This is to certify” was in bold in the original while the fake certificate carried it in plain style.
Point six: The original line has “of” written in between the space separating day and month, while the fake one was just a straight line without the “of” separator.
Another difference is in the calligraphy which markedly differs between the two. Calligraphy discrepancy is one of the areas staff of NYSC pointed out to PREMIUM TIMES in the course of determining the veracity of Mrs. Adeosun’s ‘certificate’.
Eighth: The writings below the name quoting relevant sections of the NYSC Act to justify the exemption are spaced in the fake certificate while in the original they are without any space.
Most importantly, however, the certificate issued in July was signed by Maharazu Tsiga, the then director general while the purported certificate of Mrs. Adeosun, allegedly issued in September, carries the signature of Yusuf Bomoi, who left the agency in January. Culled from Premium Times
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