Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said the Federal Government has nothing to add to the controversy trailing the Minister of Finance Kemi Adeosun’s alleged forged National Youth Service Corps (NUSc) certificate of exemption.

The Minister was responding to a question by State House Correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on why the Federal Government was yet to react to the allegation.

According to Mohammed, “The government has spoken. NYSC is part of government and I have nothing to add to what the NYSC has said.”

The Finance minister has been under fire in the last couple of days, after online medium, Premium Times, broke the story that she forged her NYSC exemption certificate.

According to Premium Times, Mrs. Adeosun graduated from university at the age of 22.

By Nigerian laws, only those who clocked 30 years of age at graduation are exempted from the one year mandatory service to the nation.

Adeosun graduated from the Polytechnic of East London in 1989.

Adeosun’s CV as seen by Premium Times states that she was born in March 1967.

Adeosun’s name back in university was Folakemi Oguntomoju.

According to Premium Times, Adeosun graduated with a degree in Applied Economics. She, however, chose to pursue a fast-paced career in the British public and private sectors.

She first landed a job at British Telecoms but left a year later to join Goodman Jones, an Accounting and Investment firm, as Audit Officer. She served there till 1993.

In 1994, Adeosun joined London Underground Company as an Internal Audit Manager, before switching to Prism Consulting, a finance firm, where she worked between 1996 until 2000.

In 2000, Adeosun was hired by PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she worked for two years.

The Premium Times story read that: “When she eventually returned to Nigeria in 2002, Mrs. Adeosun still did not deem it necessary to participate in the NYSC scheme. She simply accepted a job offer at a private firm, Chapel Hill Denham.

“However, ostensibly concerned that she might run into trouble for skipping the mandatory scheme, Mrs. Adeosun, sometime in 2009, procured a fake exemption certificate”.

The NYSC, in its response, noted that Adeosun did apply for an exemption certificate but was silent on if she has been  granted an original exemption certificate.

The NYSC statement on the saga read as follows: “Our attention has been drawn to the issue of the alleged forgery of an NYSC Exemption Certificate by the Honorable Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.

“Checking our records, Mrs. Adeosun did apply for an Exemption Certificate.

“We shall investigate the origin of the purported Exemption Certificate in question.”

There has also been reports that the NYSC has been under intense pressure to grant the minister an authentic, back-dated certificate or blame a late boss of the NYSC for the forged certificate.

Adeosun has been silent on the matter since the story broke.

She attended the federal executive council meeting and left as soon as the meeting ended.