Two officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) who allegedly forged academic certificates to gain undue advantage have been apprehended, The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has disclosed.
The arrest of the duo, Edwin Onyuwe and Achigili Ogoli, was sequel to a petition to the anti-graft agency by Boboye Oyeyemi, FRSC corps marshal.
Boboye had alleged that the two officials approached the management of the FRSC with forged bachelor of science degrees in public administration from the University of Abuja in other to be upgraded to officer cadre.
In a statement on Friday, jointly signed by Azuka Ogugua, ICPC spokesperson, and Bisi Kazeem, FRSC spokesperson, the commission said it also arrested two members of a certificate forgery syndicate, Sunday Okpara and Abdulrahman Razak, who helped the corps officers to forge their certificates.
Other members of the syndicate include Matthias Ibitiye, Usman Danjuma, and Uchenna Ifeonu.
“Before their arrest by ICPC, the corps had contacted the University of Abuja to ascertain the authenticity of the certificates,” the statement said.
“The school wrote to FRSC confirming that the degree certificates were forged.
FRSC
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“Yet, Onyuwe and Ogoli, maintained that they were originals approved by the university, having allegedly paid N500,000 bribe to a staff of the university to falsify records in order to back their claim.
“ICPC, in the course of 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 an 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.”
“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.”
The commission said the matter will be taken to court upon the conclusion of investigations.
According to the ICPC, the exercise is part of the collaboration between the commission and the FRSC to stamp out corruption from the corps.
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