Politics

How Nigeria’s Finance Minister was forced to resign over forged certificate

Published

6 years ago

September 15, 2018

Nigeria’s Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, on Friday resigned her appointment from President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. The journey into resignation started on Wednesday, with an order for her to resign.

Impeccable sources told PREMIUM TIMES the minister was barred from the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting and told to submit her resignation to the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari.

The verbal instruction, which was relayed to her by Mr Kyari on behalf of the president, rattled Mrs Adeosun who went home downcast from the villa.

“She has been downcast and at home since she was given the order,” a source close to her told PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday.

The option of resignation was handed the minister as a way of giving her an opportunity to salvage whatever remained of her integrity.

A leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, also reportedly advised President Buhari to ask the minister to resign.

That was, however, not done before the president left for London on vacation in July.

At least two officials who met with Mr Buhari around the time confided in PREMIUM TIMES that the president assured them that he was consulting before taking action.

“He said he spoke to about seven persons, including the Ogun State governor who brought her, to seek advise on the way out,” a chief executive of one federal agency told PREMIUM TIMES at the time.

After the communication of the presidential decision to her on Wednesday, Mrs Adeosun knew the game was up. But she soon activated an intense lobby to reverse the order hours after overcoming the initial shock.

Governors sympathetic to her cause made spirited attempts to change her fate on Wednesday, but met brick walls.

Seeing that her fate was sealed, Mrs Adeosun reluctantly called a meeting of senior finance ministry officials on Thursday.

A senior ministry official who requested that his name should not be revealed, as he was not authorised to speak on the issue, said the minister turned in her resignation letter late Friday.

At the brief meeting Thursday afternoon, Mrs Adeosun directed her staff to commence the process of tidying the books and preparing her hand-over note.
The meeting was attended by the permanent secretary and the ministry’s departmental heads.

Two senior finance ministry officials said there was directive to all the departments to immediately begin work on the hand over notes.

The official said the directive to officials to delay the formal announcement of Mrs Adeosun’s departure from the Executive Council of the Federation was given by the presidency to allow the minister sufficient time to complete her hand-over note.

After spending the entire day in her office working to clean up her table and pack her personal belongings, the minister handed over to the ministry’s permanent secretary, Mahmoud Dutse, Friday evening.

But in its statement late Friday, the presidency directed the minister of state for budget and planning, Zainab Ahmed, to oversee the finance ministry.

Mrs Adeosun graduated from the Polytechnic of East London in 1989, at the age of 22, having been born in March 1967.

Having graduated at 22, the Nigerian law made it obligatory for Mrs Adeosun to submit herself for mobilisation to participate in the one-year mandatory national service, for her to qualify for any job in Nigeria.

Following the report, the NYSC in its initial reaction disowned the purported exemption certificate the minister claimed she had.

Days later, the NYSC asked for time to investigate and carry out verification of the minister’s certificate.

The result of that verification was never made public but PREMIUM TIMES learnt it played a key role in Mrs Adeosun’s exit.

In resigning her appointment, the disgraced Minister, in her letter to Buhari, wrote as follows:

“Dear Excellency,

Let me commence by thanking you profusely for the honour and privilege of serving under your inspirational leadership. It has been a truly rewarding experience to learn from you and to observe at close quarters your integrity and sense of duty.

“I have, today, become privy to the findings of the investigation into the allegation made in an online medium that the Certificate of Exemption from National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) that I had presented was not genuine. This has come as a shock to me and I believe that in line with this administration’s focus on integrity, I must do the honourable thing and resign.

“Your Excellency, kindly permit me to outline some of the background to this matter. I was born and raised in the United Kingdom, indeed my parental family home remains in London. My visits to Nigeria up until the age of thirty-four (34) were holidays, with visas obtained in my UK passport. I obtained my first Nigerian passport at the age of thirty-four (34) and when I relocated there was debate as to whether NYSC Law applied to me. Upon enquiry as to my status relating to NYSC, I was informed that due to my residency history and having exceeded the age of thirty (30), I was exempted from the requirement to serve. Until recent events, that remained my understanding.

“On the basis of that advice and with the guidance and assistance of those, I thought were trusted associates, NYSC were approached for documentary proof of status. I then received the certificate in question. Having never worked in NYSC, visited the premises, been privy to nor familiar with their operations, I had no reason to suspect that the certificate was anything but genuine. Indeed, I presented that certificate at the 2011 Ogun State House of Assembly and in 2015 for Directorate of State Services (DSS) Clearance as well as to the National Assembly for screening. Be that as it may, as someone totally committed to a culture of probity and accountability I have decided to resign with effect from Friday, 14th September, 2018.

“Your Excellency, It has been an exceptional privilege to have served our nation under your leadership and to have played a role in steering our economy at a very challenging time. I am proud that Nigeria has brought discipline into its finances, has identified and is pursuing a path to long term sustainable growth that will unlock the potential in this great economy. Under your leadership, Nigeria was able to exit recession and has now started to lay the foundations for lasting growth and wealth creation. Repositioning this huge economy is not a short term task and there are no short cuts, indeed there are tough decisions still to be made but I have no doubt that your focus on infrastructural investment, revenue mobilisation and value for money in public expenditure will deliver growth, wealth and opportunity for all Nigerians.

“I thank His Excellency, the Vice President and my colleagues in the Federal Executive Council for the huge pleasure and honour of working with them. I also thank most specially, the team in the ‘Finance Family’ of advisers and heads of agencies under the Ministry of Finance. Your Excellency, this group of committed Nigerians represent a range of backgrounds, ethnicities and ages. They have worked well above and beyond the call of duty to support me in the tasks assigned. The diversity in my team and their ability to work cohesively to deliver reforms, convinces me that Nigeria has the human capital required to succeed.

“Your Excellency, let me conclude by commending your patience and support, during the long search for the truth in this matter. I thank you again for giving me the honour of serving under your leadership, it is a rare privilege, which I do not take for granted. As a Nigerian and committed progressive, I appreciate you for your dogged commitment to improving this nation.

Please be assured, as always, of my highest regards and best wishes.”

Kemi Adeosun (Mrs)

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Politics

Guinea Bissau President Embalo won’t seek re-election

Published

2 days ago

September 12, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Cissoko Embalo, declared on Thursday that he would not seek reelection in the forthcoming presidential election in November.

The 51-year-old Embalo who succeeded replace departing President José Mario Vaz would have been qualified for a second term in office after defeating Domingos Simoes Pereira, the runner-up, with 54% of the vote in 2020.

The shocking revelation might lead to a leadership vacuum and increase political unrest in the two million-person nation that is prone to coups. Embalo stated that his wife had talked him out of running for office again at the conclusion of a council of ministers meeting on Thursday evening.

Without providing any details or designating a replacement, he declared that neither Pereira nor two other opposition lawmakers, Braima Camara and Nuno Gomes Na Bian, would be his successor.

After serving as prime minister under Vaz, Embalo, an ex-army general, took over a protracted political deadlock in a nation where uprisings and coups have been frequent since the country’s 1974 independence from Portugal.

Embalo claims that during his administration, there have been two attempts to topple him, the most recent one being in December 2023. Days later, he dissolved parliament for the second time since taking office as a result of the attempts.

Under the current political structure in Guinea Bissau, the government is chosen by the dominant party or coalition. However, the president has the authority to revoke it under specific conditions, which frequently result in unrest and political impasse.

Like most African countries, the country suffers underdevelopment and has become

a significant hub for the trafficking of cocaine. About 2.63 tonnes of cocaine were taken into custody by police on a Venezuelan-arrived aircraft last Saturday.

Politics

Algeria: Opposition candidates challenge President Tebboune’s re-election

Published

3 days ago

September 12, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Two opposition candidates from the recently concluded elections in Algeria have formally contested the provisional result, sharply criticising election officials and contesting the vote total.

The first move towards contesting the election results was taken by Islamist Abdellali Hassani Cherif and socialist Youcef Aouchiche, who filed appeals with Algeria’s Constitutional Court. Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the incumbent president, won the election with 94.7% of the vote.

According to Algerian law, the court has ten days from the time the provisional election results are announced to decide on the appeals. Should a ruling be rendered, the electoral body might be forced to redo the totals for each candidate without doubting Tebboune’s victory.

Both candidates criticized Mohamed Charfi, the head of Algeria’s National Independent Electoral Authority (ANIE), the day before they filed their appeals.

“President Tebboune didn’t need this stuffing. We knew he’d be reelected, but with these results, ANIE hasn’t done him any favours,” Cherif said. “We want our votes — the votes of the people who voted for us — to be returned to us. I know it won’t change the outcome of the vote, but it will go down in history.”

At a press conference, Aouchiche’s campaign manager presented visuals that he said demonstrated how the results had been tampered with, labelling the result a “shameful and gross manipulation.”

He referred to the 1970s, when the only recognised political party in the nation ran its preferred candidate unopposed, saying, “These results, which do not correspond at all to the number of votes communicated to us by the regional delegations of the same ANIE, are a disgrace for the Algeria of 2024, taking us back to that era.”

The disparities in the number of votes counted to determine the outcome and the turnout statistics released by election officials the day before have been criticised by the two contenders. Tebboune joined them late on Sunday, September 9, joining the public outrage that his rivals had stoked against ANIE.

Campaign managers for Tebboune, Aouchiche, and Cherif questioned the results released by ANIE and noted that they didn’t match the regional data provided by local authorities in a joint statement.

“We inform national public opinion that inaccuracies, contradictions, ambiguities and inconsistencies were noted in the figures when the provisional results of the presidential election were announced by the chairman of the National Independent Election Authority,” they wrote.

Algeria has a system of universal suffrage. The President. who is chosen for a five-year term that is renewable once is in charge of both the High Security Council and the Council of Ministers. The Prime Minister, who serves as the head of state, is chosen by him. The Council of Ministers is chosen by the Prime Minister.