By Semiu Okanlawon
Quite not unexpectedly, President Bola Tinubu’s Minister of Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji kissed the dust in the evening of Tuesday, October 7th, 2025.
His resignation letter, which we believe must have been forced by the Presidency, ended a ministerial career of about two years – August 16, 2023 to October 7th, 2025.
He is the sixth of the Federal Executive Council members appointed by Tinubu to fall by the wayside; others being Betta Edu, former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs; Uju-Ken Ohanenye, the former Minister of Women Affairs; Lola Ade-John, the former Minister of Tourism; Prof Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education; Abdullahi Gwarzo, Minister of state, Housing and Urban Development, and Jamila Ibrahim, Minister of Youth Development.
Apart from Betta Chimaobim Edu, whose appointment was ruptured by a deluge of indiscretionary transactions bordering on sleaze in high places, others who had to leave the cabinet were either on the reasons of poor performance and inertia in their respective portfolio even if officially the presidency did not say so. But that should be the norm under a President who is constantly in the eyes of the citizens who want to see the magic wand he promised to turn around the fortunes of Nigeria in no time during his electioneering.
To harbour a man of Nnaji’s profile and unenviable past is for Tinubu to give wrong signals that his administration is not ready for the goodies he promised during his campaigns and his government is one of the dubious, the dishonest and the roguish.
Perhaps, had he not ventured into politics where certifications are used to boost profiles and authenticate competences, Nnaji’s story would have been one of those celebrated grass-to-grace, self-made glories that motivational speakeres use to sell their inspirations.
Reported to have earned little support from his mother to start a business of his own having lost his father early in life, Nnaji’s businesses boomed in trading, imports and manufacturing.
He is even credited to have been the first Nigerian to import CT-scan machines in the 80s plus a number of other commercially viable, money-spinning engagements in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
By 1999, he was already an established businessman having enough financial war-chest to be a founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party on the platform of which he won the Enugu East senatorial election in 1999.
However, what we know is that Nnaji surprised constituents when he did not show up for swearing in; dropping his ambition to become a senator after he had won the election.
Till date, his decision remains unexplained even as the Independent National Eleectoral Commission had to organise a fresh election which paved the way for former Governor Jim Nwobodo to be elected for the senatorial district.
In retrospect, could someone fully aware of Nnaji’s fake academic qualifications and National Youth Service Scheme (NYSC) discharge certificate have threatened to expose the businessman’s fraudulent past unless he relinquished his seat?
For emphasis, what this signifies is that Nnaji has been a factor in the Nigerian political environment, especially in his native Enugu state before luck ‘smiled’ on him to be appointed a Minister after losing his bid for the governorship race of the state; beaten by incumbent Peter Mbah.
What then catapulted Nnaji to Abuja was the Nigerian culture where every defeated contestant is ‘compensated’ with other appointments if only to keep them floating politically until the next election circle.
But beyond Nnaji, the scandal ridicules Nigeria’s various institutions which ought to be the gatekeepers to prevent passage of such dubious personalities into national assignments.
How, for instance, did the Directorate of State Security (DSS) fail to discover that Nnaji was as fake as the papers he presented to it for background checks? This was the same DSS, as we were told, that was so ‘diligent’ in its work to discover that former Governor of Kaduna, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, posed threats to the country’s security architecture should he be confirmed as a minister of the Federal Republic.
We should also be alarmed that the institution of the Senate, which gave final nod to Nnaji’s appointment, failed President Tinubu in its assignment.
Does Nigeria need to create a separate agency to validate certificates and other claims? You may hear some Nigerians, unable to fathom the level of degeneracy in certificate forgery and manipulations, be proposing such a new agency of government hoping that will put a permanent stop to the scourge. But this sounds unnecessary. A little care and attention to details by the extant institutions are enough to get done, the jobs of wielding the fakes out of the genuine.
Muhammad Umaru Ndagi, a professor of Arabic Linguistics at the University of Abuja gave an example of how in 2004, a school proprietor in Abuja tasked him with the job of verifying academic credentials presented by all the teachers on its payroll.
“Without writing to the issuing institutions to validate the certificates documented in the file of each staff, my career knowledge and experience led and guided me to detect that eighteen out of the twenty-three staff in the teaching employment of the school had fake certificates. It was easy for me to sort out fake certificates because I only had to look out for the usual format and seals that are typical of academic credentials, which forgers are most often unaware of.
“The absence of seals, the use of irregular format, and the sighting of grammatical errors in a statement of result should raise suspicions in its genuineness. For example, an NCE statement result that was signed by the students’ affairs officer of a college of education suggests it is fake because only academic secretaries in such institutions (and even in universities) sign academic records,” he wrote in an article last week.
Nnaji’s case further amplifies what we all know to be one of the ailments holding down national growth. Sadly, this is nothing, it seems, the system is poised to put an end to.
Already, the quietness that has followed Nnaji’s resignation has followed in the existing pattern of previous cases when matters quietly go under the carpet and the culprits lie low for some time for the dust to settle in its entirety.
Otherwise, many expect that the former minister should have walked out of his office straight into the hands of law enforcement agents to answer for his crimes.
But his case won’t be different from those of Stella Oduah, Kemi Adeoshun, Ademola Adeleke, Ayo Fayose and many others whose qualifications were questioned by Nigerians but never got satisfactory answers till the matters were dropped.
Nnaji is the second of Tinubu’s cabinet to have quit in questionable circumstances. They left while Nigerians were filled with questions over the sleaze they committed but have wondered why allegations against them were never investigated to logical conclusions and the accused prosecuted.
Since Edu left as Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, all the hoopla about the huge billions allegedly diverted under her watch have gone with her.
The case of Beta Edu and the Ministry of Humaniarian Affairs was humongous, hair-splitting and staggering.
Recall this was a case in which the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede confirmed retrieval of at least N30bn while about 50 banks accounts were found with unexplained deposits but were linked to the sleaze in Edu’s ministry.
Olukoyede was even quoted copiuosly then in an official bulletin thus: “Update on Betta Edu investigation. We have laws and regulations guiding our investigations. Nigerians will also know that they are already on suspension, and this is based on the investigations we have done, and President Bola Tinubu has proved to Nigerians that he is ready to fight corruption.
“Moreover, concerning this particular case, we have recovered over N30 billion, which is already in the coffers of the Federal Government.
“It takes time to conclude investigations; we started this matter less than six weeks ago. Some cases take years to investigate. There are so many angles to it, and we need to follow through with some of the discoveries that we have seen. Nigerians should give us time on this matter; we have professionals on this case, and they need to do things right. There are so many leads here and there.”
This serves as one of those instances critics of this administration list as one that treats big time crimes with lipgloss and powder.
In a case where the country’s anti-graft tsar himself declared his agency had discovered “so many angles,” it reeks of high corruption that such a case is heard no more.
As it is, one could safely conclude that there is a huge number of forged documents that have catapulted many to heights that they now occupy where they even bleed the country to death gradually since their paths to those high stations were never via merit in the first place.