Police say they cannot arrest Adeosun over forgery as they have not received an official complaint

POLICE authorities have declared that they cannot arrest finance minister Kemi Adeosun for forgery despite her admitting that her National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) exemption certificate was not genuine because there has been no formal complaint against her.

 

Earlier this month, national daily Premium Times, revealed that Ms Adeosun, 51, an economist and chartered accountant, forged an NYSC exemption certificate to enable her serve in government. According to the report, Ms Adeosun’s certificate is dated September 9, 2009 and was signed by Yusuf Bomoi, a former NYSC director-general who passed away in September last year but he had stepped down from the NYSC eight months earlier in January 2009, so could not have signed it.

 

After weeks of silence, Ms Adeosun finally spoke on the matter yesterday, saying she did not know that the exemption certificate was forged. She pointed out that she got the certificate through a third party and was unaware of the fact that it was not genuine.

 

Despite this admission of guilt, the police have stated that they cannot investigate Ms Adeosun because there is no formal complaint against her. Nigerian Police Force spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, said that they were not aware of the allegations against the minister, adding that no one had come forward to lodge a complaint against her.

 

Mr Moshood said: “There must be a complaint, either written or verbal to us. You must write to a divisional police station or the commissioner of police or to the inspector-general of police but we have not received any complaint, so we can’t investigate it.

 

Asked if the media reports of the allegation were not sufficient for the police to initiate a probe, he stated that police detectives could not initiate an investigation based on newspaper reports. Mr Moshood insisted on a written or verbal complaint to the police, noting that this was the basis for all police investigations.

 

“I have not read the report of what you said was published in newspapers. As I said, we can’t investigate the allegations until there is a verbal or written complaint against her," Mr Moshood added.

 

Two non-governmental organisations had reportedly petitioned the inspector general of police to probe the allegations against Ms Adeosun. Human and Environmental Development Agenda Resource Centre and an anti-corruption group Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, had challenged the minister to break her silence and respond to the allegation.

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