By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi Okoi Obono-Obla, Special Assistant to the President on Prosecutions and Head of S...
By Farooq A. Kperogi,
Ph.D.
Obono-Obla’s probable criminal impersonation of a dead person is worsened by unassailable evidence of his criminal fudging of the relative’s school certificate. Ofem Okoi Ofem, whose certificate Obono-Obla used to get admission into the University of Jos, had four credits (C6 in English, A1 in Government, C4 in Bible Knowledge, and C5 in Economics), was absent for Literature in English, and got failing grades in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Biology.
Twitter:
@farooqkperogi
Okoi Obono-Obla, Special Assistant to the President on
Prosecutions and Head of Special Investigation Panel for Recovery of Public Property,
embodies the tragicomic disconnect between the Buhari administration’s
self-construal of itself as an “anti-corruption” government and the cold hard
fact of its deep embeddedness in and toleration of mind-boggling corruption of
different shades.
Obono-Obla’s
corruption started in the early 1980s. According to the Human Rights Writers
Association (HURIWA), which painstakingly scrutinized his records, Obono-Obla
possibly stole his dead relative's "O" level certificate in 1982,
fudged it to include Literature in English, which the dead relative didn't sit
for, used the result to gain admission to the university, and then changed his
name decades later.
The dead relative was known as Ofem Okoi Ofem, the same name
Obono-Obla bore until 2015, as I’ll show shortly. I viewed the photo attached
to the statement of result from Mary Knoll College, Ogoja, Cross River State,
that was issued to Ofem Okoi Ofem, and it looks nothing like the younger
version Obono-Obla. So it is entirely plausible that Obono-Obla impersonated a
dead relative. If this can be established conclusively, that would be a
criminal offense on its own.
 |
| This photo doesn't look to me like the younger version of the man above |
Obono-Obla’s probable criminal impersonation of a dead person is worsened by unassailable evidence of his criminal fudging of the relative’s school certificate. Ofem Okoi Ofem, whose certificate Obono-Obla used to get admission into the University of Jos, had four credits (C6 in English, A1 in Government, C4 in Bible Knowledge, and C5 in Economics), was absent for Literature in English, and got failing grades in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Biology.
The University of Jos, like most Nigerian universities,
required (and still requires) five credits, including credits in English and
Literature in English, to qualify to study law. Ofem Okoi Ofem’s school
certificate fell short of these requirements, so Obono-Obla fudged the result.
He fraudulently inserted C6 as the grade earned for Literature in English,
which the original candidate didn’t sit for. That forgery achieved two things:
it increased the credit passes of the certificate to five and satisfied the Literature
in English prerequisite to study law. Obono-Obla used this falsified result to
gain admission to study law—of all courses!—at the University of Jos.
We know all this
because of the revelations that came out of the House of Representatives’ ad
hoc committee that investigated “the legality of the operations of the special investigation
panel for the recovery of public property.”
And this isn’t a case of mistaken identity. Every detail of
the certificate Obono-Obla presented to the University of Jos— and to the
presidency as a precondition for getting his job— matches the record kept at
the West African Examination Council. His public profile also says he attended
Mary Knoll College in Ogoja, and the year of graduation he indicated on his
profiles is consistent with the record at WAEC. There is no question that it's
the same person.
In his testimony before the House of Representatives on June
6, 2018, WAEC’s Deputy Registrar, Femi Ola, said, “From our record, the genuine
candidate is Ofem Okoi Ofem, 09403/247 of Mary Knoll College, Ogoja. The exam
number and number of subjects are the same. The difference is the grade in
English literature in which he claimed to have scored C6 despite being marked
absent in the true, certified copy.” Daily Trust reported that the
deputy registrar characterized Obono-Obla’s certificate as “fake, not genuine”
and therefore invalid.
Perhaps in a bid to cover his tracks in anticipation of an
“anti-corruption” job in the Buhari government, Ofem Okoi Ofem legally changed
his name to Okoi Obono-Obla in October 2015. TheCable of May 28, 2018 reported HURIWA to have found that “[A]fter he was
called to the bar in 1991, Ofem Okoi Ofem, for reasons best known to him, changed
his name to Okoi Obono-Obla. See the Deed of Change of Name (ANNEXTURE E) and
confirmation of name change issued by the registrar of the Supreme Court on
15th October 2015.”
Apart from possible impersonation and proven forgery,
Obono-Obla was also accused of corruption in the management of the finances of
the presidential panel he heads and of blackmailing the people he was supposed
to be recovering looted funds from with threats of media exposes if they didn’t
offer him bribes. The allegations were credible enough to cause the Attorney-General
and Minister of Justice, himself a coddler of corrupt people such as
Abdulrasheed Maina, to fire him and to bar him from granting press interviews
and issuing press releases in November 2017.
“Obla is also instructed to henceforth seek clearance from
the AGF before granting any media interview or making press releases on
official matters, while he is directed to promptly provide a detailed
up-to-date report on the activities of the panel to the Minister for onward
transmission to the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo,” the justice
minister’s letter of November 5, 2017 said.
As is now the norm with Buhari when it comes to corruption
involving people he perceives as “loyal” to him, Obono-Obla was reinstated and
his press gag lifted. But, again, after a methodical and comprehensive investigation
of Obono-Obla, which included a report from the Auditor-General of the
Federation that confirms his financial indiscretions, the House of Representatives, on July 31, recommended that Obono-Obla be
fired, arrested, and prosecuted for corruption and forgery. It also recommended
that the University of Jos revoke the degree it awarded him and for the Body of
Benchers to disbar him.
It is both depressing and comedic that one of the
president’s points men in the “fight against corruption” is himself wrapped in multilayered,
eye-watering fraud. As usual, nothing will happen to him. And that’s precisely
why there is now a complete, irretrievable loss of faith not just in the
government’s “anti-corruption fight” but in law and justice. Court orders are
routinely disobeyed by government and corrupt people who are “loyal” to the
president are protected from the consequences of their corruption.
Obono-Obla’s case particularly stands out like a sore thumb
because he is supposed to be in the forefront in the “fight against corruption.”
But corruption cannot fight corruption. As the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
once said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do
that." You can't be a criminal impersonator, an audacious certificate
forger, and a venal public official who uses his position to defraud people and
the country and claim to be an anti-corruption fighter.
Government apologists like to plagiarize the late Dr. Yusufu
Bala Usman by calling any unmasking of government’s fraudulent anti-corruption
fight as “corruption fighting back.” No, corruption isn’t fighting back. It’s
more a case of corruption selectively fighting corruption. That’s a dead-end
fight because it is rooted in crying injustice and double standard.
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