Caught In Certificate Forgery: Nine Ekiti Assembly Members to Face Trial

The Federal Government will prosecute 9 out of 26 members of the Ekiti State House of Assembly for alleged forgery of their academic results.

A security source disclose in Abuja on Sunday disclosed that the decision to prosecute them is based on the outcome of “an intensive investigation carried out by the Department of State Services into the state lawmakers’ certificates.’’

The DSS, it was gathered, carried out investigation into the credentials submitted by the politicians to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the last general elections.

According to Punch, the probe was sequel to a myriad of petitions sent to the agency and the Police by aggrieved members of the ruling PDP and the opposition party in the state, the APC.

Investigation was said to have been carried out in schools allegedly claimed to have been attended by the lawmakers and their former places of work.

The source said the files of affected lawmakers had been sent to the office of the Attorney General of the Federation for prosecution.

The source added, “We have investigated the academic credentials of the lawmakers based on petitions sent to us by the politicians in the state.

“The petitions were based on alleged false declaration of academic qualifications and alleged age falsification in the papers presented to the INEC.

“We have been able to know that petitions against nine members of the State House of Assembly are genuine.

“We have already presented our report and we are expecting the office of the AGF to study it and prepare the charges against the suspects.”