the ‘certificate’ is also suspect. As indicated
The signature on the
‘certificate’ is also suspect. As indicated earlier in this report, it was
purportedly signed by an official who left the corps eight months before the
documen
find t was made. One official described that claim as “barefaced lie and
total impossibility”.
A TOOL FOR BLACKMAIL
PREMIUM TIMES reported
Friday how the certificate scandal was turned into a tool for blackmail by a
National Assembly cartel that used it to coerce the finance minister to keep
releasing funds
house to the lawmaking arm.
Some federal lawmakers
revealed to this paper that the discrepancy was detected by the Senate during
the minister’s confirmation hearing. But rather than probe the issue, they
turned it in
business to a tool against Mrs Adeosun.
The report linked the
certificate scandal to the minister’s excessive, even illegal, funding of the
lawmakers, including recently funnelling a N10billion largesse to that arm of
government.
MINISTER, NYSC WONT
REACT
Although several of its
officials informally cooperated with our reporters in the course of this
investigation, the NYSC leadership declined to respond to our official
correspondences.
We first sent a letter to Director-General Sule Kazaure (brigadier-general)
requesting him to help determine the authenticity or otherwise of the
minister’s ‘certificate’.
After we received no response for several weeks, we sent in a Freedom of
Information request on the matter. Weeks after, we are still waiting for
response.
Insiders say authorities
of the corps have been under severe pressure in the past weeks not to respond
to our inquiries.
One of our reporters
also requested a reaction from Oluyinka Akintunde, the spokesperson to Mrs
Adeosun, who was briefed on the outcome of our investigations. He is yet to
send a response to our inquiry.
Source: PREMIUM TIMES
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