By Theophilus Ilevbare
It never rains but pours. The storm is
certainly not over for the embattled
Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella
Oduah who is now embroiled in a
scandal of towering proportion -
certificate forgery.
Stunning revelations by the intrepid
online whistleblower, Sahara Reporters,
revealed that Princess Oduah (‘Princess’
as she has insisted she be addressed),
lied about her Master’s degree. In her
citation to the Senate during ministerial
screening in 2011, Mrs. Oduah claimed
she attended St. Paul’s College,
Lawrenceville in Virginia, United States,
from 1978-1982, where she bagged her
first Degree in Accounting. “On
completion of her first degree, she was
not lured into taking up paid employment
but was determined to have the best
education and at the highest level, so
she immediately stayed back to study for
her Masters Degree which she achieved
in 1983,” the citation said. Thorough
investigations have revealed that St.
Paul's College, Lawrenceville in its 125-
year history never ran a graduate
(masters) programme. More so, there
was no trace of evidence that she earned
a Bachelor's degree from the said
university.
Barely 24 hours after her claim to have
acquire a Masters degree from St. Paul’s
University in the United States was
punctured, further investigation
uncovered another false claim by the
embattled Minister – fast gaining
notoriety for earthshaking scandals –
that she lied on oath to the Nigeria
Senate, and indeed the Nigerian people,
in her audacious claim that another
American ‘university’, Pacific Christian
University based in Glendale, sometime in
1998, awarded her an honorary doctorate
degree in Business Administration.
Investigation by grapevine online news
platforms showed that there is no
university in Glendale called Pacific
Christian University. It was on the
strength of this qualification she was
grilled and eventually confirmed by the
lawmakers as a minister. This is a
scandal and the law should be allowed
to take its course.
Silence, they say, is acquiescence.
Unsurprisingly, all her aides and
spokesmen of departments and
parastatals under her ministry have so
far failed to respond to enquiries by
journalists to the latest findings indicting
the minister. To lend credence to the
these scholarly journalistic work, it has
been observed that frantic efforts have
been made by the minister and her aides
to revise her profiles on the internet in a
desperate bid to clean up every reference
to St. Paul’s College and Pacific
Christian University. On Wikipedia for
instance, it was observed that her page
was edited 19 times between 1.56am
and 5.05pm on Tuesday, January 7.
Meanwhile, the dust is yet to settle on
the reckless abuse of office by the
Minister’s approval of the purchase of
two bulletproof BMW cars at an
unimaginable cost of $1.6m (or about
N255m) by the National Civil Aviation
Authority (NCAA), a federal agency under
her ministry’s supervision. Coscharis
Motors Limited, a dealership from which
the two BMW cars were purchased by
NCAA, gave N112million to the aviation
minister, Ms Oduah as kickbacks while
Cosmas Maduka, who owns Coscharis
Motors, pocketed N60 million for each of
the two BMW cars.
But how long will President Jonathan
continue to shield her from anti-
corruption agencies despite massive
criticism trailing her corrupt acts is the
big question on everyone’s lips. Many
reason that with the latest revelations,
she does not deserve to stay one more
second as a minister of the federal
republic. The longer she remains in
Jonathan’s government, the more
embarrassing she becomes to the
country, making a huge joke of the much
touted anti-graft crusade of the present
administration.
President Jonathan should not use any
probe panel to cover-up or create a
leeway to delay investigations, lull public
outrage and ultimately detract the anti-
corruption agencies from prosecuting the
aviation minister. At this point, Ms.
Oduah is (seemingly) unshaken, the
subterfuge of a panel has been a fortress.
Those who revel in ignominy have
resorted to such crude ways as
clannishness to support her reckless
abuse of office. Such Nigerians have
been blinded by ethnic jingoism that no
deed is too heinous as long as the
offender is of their ethnic bracket. For
such staunch backers, she is being
'persecuted because she is Igbo."
It is inconceivable that such tribalists try
so hard to validate impunity with
ethnicity. It is even more worrisome
when so called enlightened Nigerians join
in this stupefying vulgarity. Nigeria will
turn the corner when we stop invoking
the 'ethnic card' to perpetuate criminality
and defend corruption.
The Senate must now do more than
‘take a bow and go' during subsequent
screening exercises. Independent
verification of documents must be done
by the upper chamber of the National
Assembly and not left to security
agencies alone that it now seem take
orders from powers above.
The most probable option left for Stella
Oduah is to throw in the towel, if for
nothing at all, so she can save us all the
embarrassment she unduly attracts to
the country. Our sit tight leaders have
already gained a reputation that no
amount of disgrace constrains them to
lose their tight grip on power. What
better way can President Jonathan prove
to Nigerians that he is dedicated to
taking the fight against corruption in
2014 up a notch, as he promised in his
new year message, by asking her to step
aside. The damage she has done to his
administration is incalculable. The fight
against corruption requires leaders at all
levels with high voltage public morality.
People who occupy public offices must
be made to feel they have moral
obligations to our sensibilities to save us
from being the laughing stock of the
bemused international community.
It is time we began to address the issue
of academic dishonesty in public service
in Nigeria. We need to raise ethical
standards and morality that’s the more
reason why the Stella Oduah certificate
scandal should not be swept under the
carpet. If other scandals can be ‘ignored’
by this government, certainly not this. If
Oduah is left to continue as a minister,
then it sends the wrong signal to young
Nigerians that you can cheat your way to
attain such lofty heights in government.
Every effort of the government at curbing
exam malpractice and certificate forgery
will effectively be brought to its knees if
this shameful act as widely expected, is
ignored by Mr. President.
If Jonathan had given her the boot in
response to the outrage that greeted her
BMW scandal, he would have maybe,
saved his administration this
embarrassment.
In this part of the world where politics of
mudslinging hold sway, issues of
certificate forgery are lethal weapons in
the hands of the opposition. It is weighty
enough to nail her political coffin.
Nigerian political history is replete with
examples. But it takes bovine guts to
hang on to your job in the face of public
opprobrium when you’re privy to
mystifying facts about your certificates.
Her bravery has become her undoing.
One is only left to wonder how many
political office holders have forged
certificates. It is a shame that in the
21st century with advancement in
science and technology, authenticity of
documents of public office holders
cannot be easily verified by authorities
saddled with such responsibilities. It is
left to the imagination how many
ministries such scandals exist, worse
still, we may never know the extent of
the rottenness in such places. The
integrity of some ministers in Jonathan’s
government have long been questioned.
This justifies that. Merit and competence
have long been thrown in the dust bin.
Searchlights should now be beamed on
more certificates of political office
holders.
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