After keeping mute for weeks as the Kemi Adeosun’s NYSC forgery scandal dominates the news, President Muhammadu Buhari has finally commented on what led to the resignation of the Minister of Finance.
Minister of Finance, Adeosun resigned from Buhari’s cabinet in September following weeks of pressure over her alleged forgery of an exemption certificate of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) after failing to enroll for the one-year scheme mandatory for all Nigerian graduates.
In her resignation letter, she said she was shocked that investigations revealed that the certificate was not genuine, and claimed that she was misled by “trusted associates”.
Despite the public pressure on Buhari to fire the minister or, at least, acknowledge the situation, he failed to directly address the scandal even after Adeosun’s resignation.
However, the president briefly commented over the scandal when he played host to the National Council for Women Societies (NCWS) at the Presidential Villa on Thursday, November 1, 2018.
While addressing the group, the president defended himself against accusations that he has not appointed enough women in his cabinet. He noted that he replaced Adeosun with another woman, Zainab Ahmed.
Explaining why Adeosun had to resign, the president said it was because she failed to meet the government requirement of declaring NYSC certificate. The president said:
“You said I haven’t replaced the casualties from my council about the ladies. I’m sure you are following up (Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development).
“One (former Minister of Women Affars, Aisha Alhassan) applied to leave because I think she wants to be the governor of the state and one (Adeosun) failed to meet the government requirement of declaring NYSC certificate. I replaced them with other ladies; so, I don’t know where I went wrong there?”
