Former Finance Minister. Ms Kemi Adeosun, says her resignation from the administration of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari was the result of actions by ‘powerful enemies’ who used the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate scandal as an opportunity to force her out.

Adeosun spoke in an interview with Channels Television’s Inside Sources, set to air on Friday. She resigned in 2018 after being accused of presenting a forged NYSC exemption certificate as part of her credentials.

She said she informed Mr Buhari of her intention to resign and pursue legal action to clear her name, noting it would be improper to remain in government while suing the federal government.

“I’m not confused about the fact that I had powerful enemies who I believed saw an opportunity — ‘let’s get rid of her,’” she said. “You can’t be in government and sue the government. You have to go. I think it was the right thing to do.”

In 2021, a federal high court in Abuja ruled that Ms Adeosun could not be penalised over the NYSC issue, declaring that she was not legally required to present the certificate in order to hold public office. The court did not, however, rule on whether the certificate she used was forged.

How Adeosun resigned

In July 2018, a media investigation alleged that Kemi Adeosun’s NYSC exemption certificate was forged. The issue caused major public and political controversy as she was the Minister of Finance at the time.

READ ALSO: Certificate forgery scandal finally consumes Minister Nnaji as Tinubu accepts his resignation

After weeks of pressure, she wrote a resignation letter to President Muhammadu Buhari in September 2018. In the letter, she said she believed the certificate was genuine when she got it, but the scandal had made it untenable for her to continue in office.

Buhari accepted her resignation, and Zainab Ahmed was appointed to replace her.

Ministers accused of forgery or not completing NYSC

In September 2018, Premium Times reported that Minister of Communications, Mr Adebayo Shittu, failed to participate in the NYSC scheme despite graduating from the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University).

Mr Shittu later sued the NYSC, alleging that the body failed to serve him with a call-up letter in 1979 to enable him to observe the mandatory one-year national youth service, while he was still below the age of 30.

In Bola Tinubu’s administration, Minister of Art, Culture and Creative Economy, Ms Hannatu Musawa, failed, during her confirmation hearing at the Nigerian Senate, to inform legislators that she was still participating in the NYSC.

When questioned about how she became a minister without completing the NYSC programme —a requirement for public office – Ms Musawa replied that the situation had been ‘adjudicated’ and that she planned to provide a comprehensive explanation in the future.

“There have been so many different accounts of that particular situation. The fact that I’m sat here should tell you that I did not do anything wrong,” Musawa said.

“I have not come out to set the records straight as to what really happened. The social media has just run rife with different accounts. The matter has been adjudicated, and one day, I will come out with my own account.”

Also, Minister of Science and Technology, Mr Uche Nnaji, resigned in October 2024 from President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet following allegations of certificate forgery.

President Tinubu had appointed Nnaji as a minister in August 2023. The former minister has been embroiled in a certificate forgery scandal, with recent Premium Times reports affirming that he neither graduated in Microbiology/Biochemistry from the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) nor concluded his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) as he claimed.

Mr Nnaji’s NYSC certificate, dated 15 May 1986, had the signature of Animashaun Braimoh, who served as the fifth chief executive officer of the NYSC between January 1988 and December 1990. But the head of the NYSC at the time was not Mr Braimoh but Colonel Edet Akpan, who held the position between January 1984 and December 1987.

The newspaper reviewed at least 25 certificates issued by the NYSC between July 1980 and October 1990, finding that all of them were signed by a ‘director.’ However, only Mr Nnaji’s certificate was endorsed by a ‘national director.’