Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam, In Certificate Forgery Scandal

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SaharaReporters is in possession of documents indicating that Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam, may have forged the West Africa School Certificate with which he was purportedly admitted to the University of Lagos to study law.

                                       

The contentious certificate is also one of the supporting documents the governor submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission in the run-up to his election as governor in 2007.

Suswam, who is coordinator of President Goodluck Jonathan's campaign in the North-central region, was supposedly admitted to UNILAG on the basis of a 1982 General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Level certificate with candidate number: 07652151.

The original certificate portrayed him as having passed five subjects, the subjects passed were without Mathematics and English, which is a pre-requisite subject for admission into law programmes in Nigerian universities.

However, while the governor's traducers were still wondering how he managed to sneak into the University of Lagos without appropriate entry requirements, Suswam wrote to WAEC in 2005, claiming that his certificate was missing.  He attached photocopies of the purportedly missing certificate, a police extract and affidavit of loss of certificate to the letter.

Shortly afterwards, the governor claimed WAEC sent him a replacement for his lost certificate. The new certificate came with the same candidate number (07652151), with his passport photograph embossed on it.

However, the new certificate had significant changes indicating that Suswam   passed "English and Mathematics",  significantly raising the possibility that the new document is "a complete forgery" according to Suswan critics.

Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam, In Certificate Forgery Scandal