A Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday said that the former Finance Minister, Mrs Kemi Adeosun did not need the National Youth Service Scheme (NYSC) discharge certificate to take up any ministerial appointment or before standing for any elective office in the country.
The court held that Adeosun who graduated in a London University in 1989 was already 36 years of age, therefore, exempted from participating in the NYSC scheme.
Delivering judgment in a suit, Justice Taiwo Oladipupo Taiwo, held that Adeosun from available facts was a United Kingdom citizen having been born in the UK in 1967 and remained there till 2003 when she came back to Nigeria.
Justice Taiwo held that Adeosun became a Nigerian citizen by virtue of the 1999 Constitution which came into force on May 29 of the year, therefore, the NYSC Act will have no effect on her.
The judge said that Adeosun would have committed a grave crime against Nigeria if she had participated in the NYSC having attained the exemption age of 36 years.
In March 2018, the NYSC had said it was investigating a “purported Exemption Certificate” which was allegedly obtained by the former Minister of Finance.
Adeosun had come under fire with several Nigerians demanding investigations from the Federal Government into the allegations and calling for her resignation.
Reports had claimed that the finance minister, who did not participate in the one-year national youth service, allegedly forged an Exemption Certificate several years after her graduation.
The certificate, which is dated September 2009, was reportedly signed by an NYSC Director-General, Yusuf Bomoi, who already left the scheme in January 2009.
It will be recalled that in November 2015, Adeosun was appointed as a Minister of Finance under President Muhammadu Buhari after she had been cleared by the Department of State Services and by the Senate.
Both the security and legislative arms of the government, which ought to have looked closely at ministerial appointees’ certificates, records and profiles, allegedly failed to detect any fault in the NYSC Exemption Certificate presented by Adeosun.
Adeosun later tendered her resignation same year.
