THE Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has nabbed two Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) officials over alleged certificate forgery.
In a joint statement signed by ICPC Spokesperson Azuka Ogugua and FRSC Spokesperson Bisi Kazeem, which The ICIR saw on Friday, the culprits were identified as Edwin Onyuwe and Achigili Ogoli.
According to the statement, the Commission also arrested two members of a certificate forgery syndicate, Sunday Okpara and Abdulrahman Razak, for forging the certificate of the University of Abuja for the two officials of FRSC.
Their arrest in Abuja followed a petition by the FRSC Marshal Boboye Oyeyemi to the Commission, in which he alleged that the two officials had approached the management of FRSC with forged Bachelor of Science degrees in Public Administration from the University of Abuja, to be upgraded to officer cadre.
The two officials were alleged to have also presented fake statements of result from the same institution to the management of FRSC for the same purpose of upgrading to officer cadre.
It noted that before their arrest, FRSC had contacted the University of Abuja to ascertain the authenticity of the certificates, but the school wrote a reply to FRSC confirming that the degree certificates were forged.
The statement added that Onyuwe and Ogoli maintained that they were originals approved by the university, having allegedly paid an N500,000 bribe to university staff to falsify records to back their claim.
“ICPC, in the course of an investigation, found that the two FRSC officials were students of the Distance Learning programme of the University. However, they could not graduate due to poor results, as documents from the university showed they had multiple carry-overs in the courses registered.
“This allegedly made them approach the forgery syndicate to prepare the forged degree certificates for them to present to their organization for the upgrade of their cadre.
“The amount of N430,000 was found to have been paid to the syndicate for the forgery, with Onyuwe paying N230,000 while Ogoli paid N200,000 respectively.”
The statement added that a member of the syndicate, Razak, who claimed to be a printer, told ICPC operatives that he used an original certificate from the university obtained from a friend to perfect the forgery.
Other members of the syndicate include Matthias Ibitiye, Usman Danjuma, and Uchenna Ifeonu. The matter will be charged to court upon the conclusion of the investigation.
You can reach out to me on Twitter via: vincent_ufuoma