Science Minister, Uche Nnaji, in Messy Certificates Forgery Scandal

*Documents show minister commenced NYSC 3 months before graduation 

*UNN disowns degree as Nnaji loses bid to restrain varsity

The Minister of Innovation, Science, and Technology, Chief Uche Nnaji, has been caught in an alleged certificates forgery scheme, with the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) disowning  the Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) degree certificate which the minister submitted to the Senate during his screening in August 2023.
In his 10-age curriculum vitae submitted to the Senate, including his degree and NYSC certificates, the minister had told the lawmakers that he graduated from UNN with a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Microbiology and underwent his one-year mandatory NYSC service in Jos, Plateau State.
But the university has washed its hands off issuing Nnaji the degree, insisting that the minister dropped out of the institution without completing his studies, noting that the institution did not and could not have issued him the certificate he has been parading.
The university’s position was contained in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by Premium Times, an online newspaper, which had investigated the B.Sc. and NYSC certificates forgery allegation dogging the Enugu State-born minister for several years.
The letter dated October 2, 2025 and signed by the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Simon Ortuanya read: “We refer to your letter dated 29 September 2025 in respect of the above subject matter. We can confirm that Mr Geoffrey Uchechukwu Nnaji, with Matriculation Number 1981/30725, was admitted by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1981.
“From every available records and information from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, we are unable to confirm that Mr Geoffrey Uchechukwu Nnaji, the current Minister of Science and Technology, graduated from the University of Nigeria in July 1985, as there are no records of his completion of study in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
“Flowing from above, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka did not and consequently, could not have issued the purported certificate, or at all, in July 1985 to Mr Geoffrey Uchechukwu Nnaji, the current Minister of Science and Technology. This conclusion is also in consonance with an earlier letter dated May 13, 2025, ref. No, RUN/SR/R/V, issued by the University to the Public Complaints Commission in respect of the same subject matter (copy attached).”
However, UNN’s December 21, 2023 response is a stark contradiction of its earlier response to a People’s Gazette enquiry on the matter in which the University’s Registrar, Celine Nnebedum, wrote that Nnaji graduated from the institution in July 1985 – a position the university has voided in its FOI reply to the (PCC).
“We wish to inform the Public Complaints Commission that we have searched through the University of Nigeria graduation record for the 1985 session and we could not find Mr. Nnaji Geoffrey Uchechukwu’s name.
“There is no indication that the certificate was issued by the University of Nigeria,” the reply to the Commission by the school read in part.
The university’s position appears to be supported by all available facts. Indeed, other enquiries made from those that were in a position to know showed that he played truancy, and was unable to utilise opportunities accorded him to retake courses, including Virology (MCB 431AB), which he failed repeatedly.
The university, at some point, also advised him in writing to withdraw for reasons of truancy and poor academic performance, it was learnt.
But the Premium Times report stated that for Nnaji who claimed to have graduated in July 1985, in the course of investigation, its reporter sighted a letter he wrote to UNN on May 1, 1986, wherein he begged to be given another opportunity to retake a terminal course in September of that year.
Those familiar with his case said the university declined to grant his request. It also obtained a copy of the Order of Proceedings of the 20th Convocation Ceremony of the university, which contains the names of students who graduated in 1985. Mr Nnaji’s name, it stressed, was missing from the list.
The recent letter by Ortuanya, comes a few months after NYSC also disowned the minister’s discharge certificate marked A231309 and dated 1986.
Investigations by the media house  punctured Nnaji’s claims on several grounds.
For example, whereas the degree certificate Nnaji parades is dated July 1986, his NYSC certificate indicates that he served from April 16, 1985, to May 15, 1986. This is not only an unusual 13-month long service as against a one-year national service, but also about three months earlier than his purported graduation from the university in July 1985.
 In other words, it would mean that he started serving before his graduation. This  would therefore be a record for the organisation founded in 1970.
Furthermore, whereas the chief executive of the NYSC at the time he claimed to have undergone the national service was Col. Edet Akpan, who held sway between January 1984 and December 1987, the minister’s supposed NYSC discharge certificate bears the signature of Col. Animashaun Braimoh, who was the fifth CEO of the NYSC between January 1988 and December 1990.  
Again, the designation of NYSC’s CEO at the time he claimed to have served and till the early 1990s was “Director,” the report emphasised. The CEO became known as “National Director”  later in the 1990s and ultimately as “Director General”, a designation that subsists till date. Surprisingly, the minister’s discharge certificate was signed by a “National Director” in 1986. That was several years before the introduction of that designation.  
“We reviewed at least 25 certificates issued by the NYSC between July 1980 and October 1990. All were signed by ‘Director.’ Only Mr Nnaji’s was endorsed by ‘National Director.’ Our extensive review of NYSC certificates, from inception to at least October 1990, revealed that the six-digit numberings are devoid of alphabetic characters.

“For instance, the certificate issued to Lateef Fagbemi, the current Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, in 1986, is numbered 323213, while that of Abubakar Badaru (the incumbent Minister of Defence), also issued in 1986, has 299355 as its identification number.

“Mr Nnaji claimed that the NYSC issued him a certificate number A231309 in 1986, whereas the practice of adding alphabets to certificate numbers for national service did not begin until the 1990s,” the Premium Times findings further detailed.

Apart from the forensic scrutiny, two senior and highly experienced officers at the NYSC headquarters, quoted by the report, independently examined Nnaji’s discharge certificate and sifted through the agency’s record, but found no one whose identity matched that of the minister in their national service record or certificate.  

The NYSC was later to formally respond to Premium Times’ enquiry on September 23, 2023, declaring that it had no record of the certificate in the minister’s possession and was therefore unable to authenticate it.

Meanwhile, facts have emerged that rather than respond to the enquiries, the minister approached a Federal High Court in Abuja for an interim injunction restraining the Minister of Education, National Universities Commission (NUC), UNN, its Vice Chancellor, its Registrar and the Senate from acting on the request to release his records. 

However, after listening to the submission of Counsel in the lawsuit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1909/2025, Justice Hausa Yilwa held:  “I am of the humble view from the facts deposed in the affidavits, alongside the exhibits attached, that the applicant has sufficient interest in the matter to which this application relates. 

“Thus, this application is meritorious. Consequently, I hereby grant prayer 1, 2 and 3 only. Prayer 4 is declined. Having been refused, the granting of reliefs 1-3 shall not serve as injunctive reliefs against any of the parties.”

It is believed that the failed restraining order was sought to prevent Premium Times, which was closing in on the minister’s records in the university, from getting a confirmation of the genuineness or otherwise of his purported degree certificate and completion of his studies at the UNN.