Fake certificates: 500 civil servants know fate next week

By Sunday Aborisade, Ibadan


The 500 junior civil servants who were sent on suspension in February by the Oyo State Government for allegedly working with fake academic certificates will know their fate next week.







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Our correspondent on Wednesday that the committee set up to review the cases of all the affected workers had written its report and forwarded it to the office of the state’s Head of Service.

The committee was made up of civil servants, political office holders and officials of the state council of the Nigeria Labour Congress.

A source in the committee, who is a labour leader in the state, explained on the condition of anonymity to our correspondent, that only 34 out of the affected workers might get a reprieve.

According to him, “The report is ready, The committee discovered that most of the workers with the exception of about 34 of them, were actually operating with fake school certificates or its equivalent.

“The state executive council will likely determine their fate during their weekly meeting next week. We have recommended that 34 out of the workers who seemed to have genuine cases, should be pardoned.

“We discovered that there they have typographical errors in their certificates and they had submitted documents to convince us that their papers were genuine.”

He also stated that the state government had asked the committee to continue in its assignment by probing the certificates of all senior officials in the state civil service.

He said the workers had been submitting originals of the certificates they obtained from their universities, polytechnic and other higher institutions, which the state government recognised.

The state Head of Service, Dr. Ebenezer Okebukola, could not be reached for comments on Wednesday but the chairman of the state council of the NLC, Mr. Bashir Apapa, told our correspondent that the congress would meet with the government on the issue.

Apapa confirmed that the report was ready but said that the congress had advised the state government not to take any action until it had met with the NLC leadership in the state.

The 500 civil servants were suspended over allegations of certificate forgery.

Okebukola had disclosed this in February while briefing journalists after the weekly state executive council meeting.

Okebukola said that the state government had set up a panel of enquiry to investigate the development and that the affected workers would be interviewed next week.

The HOS had insisted that none of the civil servants involved in the mess would receive their salary from January until the determination of their case.

He had also explained that the exercise was geared towards “sanitising the state civil service from unscrupulous elements who used fake certificates to secure employment with the state government”.

He, however, assured the people that anybody found guilty among the affected workers at the end of the investigation will face the full the wrath of the law.


http://odili.net/news/source/2008/may/2/410.html

I'm sure some of these bank workers and engineers in Nigeria work with fake certificates too.