Anti-Corruption Group, SERAP sues NYSC DG for negligence over Adeosun Exemption Certificate.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), an anti-corruption group in Nigeria have sued the Director General of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig. Gen. Sule Kazaure over negligence on Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, forged NYSC Exemption Certificate.

This was made known in a lawsuit filed through its lawyer, Ms Bamisope Adeyanju, marked FHC/L/CS/1369/18, filed before the Federal High Court in Lagos, with SERAP seeking an order of mandamus against the NYSC and its DG.

The group is urging the court to declare that Kazaure and the NYSC’s failure to provide information and relevant documents on Adeosun’s true status was unlawful and amounted to a breach of the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2011.

The group is praying the  court to compel the NYSC to immediately supply it with “specific documents and information on Mrs Kemi Adeosun’s application for the National Youth Service Corps’ Exemption Certificate and to publish widely, including on a dedicated and on the NYSC website, any such information.”

“By the combined provisions of sections 104(1) of the Evidence Act, 2011 and sections 14(2)(b) 14(3) and 19(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, the NYSC, being the public institution in charge of issuing exemption certificates from the compulsory NYSC programme, and having publicly declared that Mrs Adeosun applied for exemption, has a duty to provide SERAP with details and documents containing the application for exemption and the exemption certificate itself, if it was granted.”

SERAP had last week given the NYSC a seven-day ultimatum to clear the air on the allegation, which has been in the public domain for about a month without a word from the minister herself.

“Suspicions of obtaining an unauthorised certificate involving a senior member of the government if not urgently and satisfactorily addressed would weaken public trust in the government’s oft-expressed commitment to transparency and accountability,”  says, Ms Bamisope Adeyanju.