ICPC nabs two FRSC officials for certificate forgery

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has arrested two officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Edwin Onyuwe and Achigili Ogoli, in Abuja, for certificate forgery.

The Commission also arrested two members of a certificate forgery syndicate, Sunday Okpara, and Abdulrahman Razak, for forging the certificate of the University of Abuja for the two FRSC officials.

Their arrest followed a petition by the Corps Marshal, Dr. Boboye Oyeyemi, to the Commission, alleging that the two officials had approached the management of FRSC with forged Bachelor of Science degrees in Public Administration, from the University of Abuja, to be upgraded to officer cadre.

The two officials were said to have also presented fake statements of results from the same institution to the management of FRSC for the same purpose of upgrading to officer cadre.

Before their arrest by ICPC, the Corps had contacted the University of Abuja to ascertain the authenticity of the certificates, but the school wrote a reply to FRSC confirming that the degree certificates were fake.

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However, Onyuwe and Ogoli, maintained that they were original copies, approved by the university, having allegedly paid a N500,000 bribe to a staff of the university to falsify records to back their claim.

Meanwhile, ICPC in the course of the investigation, found that the two FRSC officials were students of the Distance Learning Programme of the university, but, 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 for the 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.

Meantime, a member of the syndicate, 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.

Other members of the syndicate include Matthias Ibitiye, Usman Danjuma, and Uchenna Ifeonu were also arrested.

By Victor Uzoho

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