The National Examination Council has charged four students of the University of Abuja with certificate forgery and the suspects arraigned before the Chief Magistrate Court, Abuja.
Police prosecutor, Mr Chijioke Chigozie, said the suspects allegedly forged the certificates they used in gaining admission into the university.
He gave the names of the suspects arraigned who were from different faculties of the University as; Effiong Theresa Etim, Solomon Victor, Abdulkabir Mohammad, and Yakubu Joy Adama.
He disclosed that about 9 students of the University have so far been arrested but the remaining five were still under investigation.
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Tribune Online gathered that the arrest followed an ongoing screening and certificate verification embarked upon by NECO in all the tertiary institutions in the country leading to the arrest of the suspects in October 2019.
The examination body said that the move was to overhaul the institutions and ensure that only candidates with genuine certificates have the opportunity to study in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
NECO also said the prosecution of the suspects would send a strong message to students out there using fake NECO certificates.
It would be recalled that the management of NECO in a similar certificate verification exercise with the Council, has sacked at least 89 staff for certificate forgery in the last few months.
Meanwhile, the case was yet to be assigned to a judge as at the time of filing the report but a one-count charge has been preferred against the students by the police, according to the charge sheet sighted by our reporter. The offence according to the police contravened section 364 of the penal code.
The one-count charge reads: “On the 18, October 2019, the registrar of the University of Abuja laid a complaint to the Assistant Inspector General of Police, AIG, Zone 7 headquarters Abuja for investigation.
“It revealed that you Effiong Theresa Etim with June 2017 NECO SSC no 501569013, Solomon Victor June 2017 NECO SSC no: 10506512111, Abdulkabir Mohammad with June 2012 NECO SSC no: 105016543 and Yakubu Joy Adama with June 2016 NECO SSC no:597472720.
“That these certificates upon which you gained admission or sought admission into the university of Abuja are forged certificates. You are thereby suspected to have committed the above offence.”
and then