Chima Igwe, a former acting director-general of the Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO), did not obtain the PhD certificate he presented to the institute, a prosecution witness, Vera Esideme, told the Ikeja, Lagos Special Offence Court on Tuesday.
Igwe was arraigned in November 2021 by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) for alleged certificate forgery to which he pleaded not guilty.
“He did not actually obtain the certificate which he presented to FIIRO in 2002 which he used in getting to a level of a director in FIIRO and which also gave him the privilege of even being an acting DG of FIIRO,” Ms Esideme, an investigator with the ICPC, said.
Esideme who began her testimony on Monday said one Mr Olusanya (late) was sent to the University where he claimed to have acquired the doctoral degree in the Benin Republic “to enquire about the certificate and our findings revealed that the defendants completed the coursework in 1999-2002 but, however, he failed to defend his thesis publicly.
“And also the findings revealed that he had applied to the university for him to be enlisted to defend the thesis as it was a condition for him to be issued a certificate and the findings also revealed that they had given him a date to make a public defence.”
Earlier in the hearing, Esideme said Igwe was invited to make some statements regarding the petitions that were submitted against him.
“When Igwe came to the commission, he came in the company of a friend of his, and he volunteered statements under caution and this he did on several occasions,” Ms Esideme said.
“He volunteered statements about six times – in 2019, he came twice and in 2020 he came about four times to volunteer statements.
The court admitted the statements.
“During his first statement, he informed the team that he had applied for approval to proceed for a Ph.D. programme at the University of Abomey Calabi.
“Afterwards in 2002, he wrote to FIIRO notifying FIIRO of completion of (the) programme attaching an attestation and it was in French interpreted in English by one Lawrence,” she said.
The investigator said during the investigation they also retrieved an extract “from the body of FIIRO the minutes (of meeting) that was held on April 15, 2019.
“In our finding from the minutes, the body (FIIRO) had given the defendant an ultimatum of 30 days to present his certificate which he had failed. In that meeting, they discussed his inability to present his certificate.”
However, the defendant’s lawyer, C. Nwonu, objected to the admissibility of the minutes of the meeting.
Nwonu said it was not signed by the secretary and the names of the attendees were there.
Responding, the prosecution lawyer, Henry Emore, said one ‘Alhaji’ signed the meeting as the chairman.
But the judge, Sherifat Solebo, said the chairman is different from the secretary.
However, Emore argued that the document was gotten in the course of the investigation, adding that “it was signed by one of the concerned parties, my Lord.”
But the judge pointed out that because it was retrieved in the course of the investigation does not mean it should not comply with the law. She, however, “rejected” the document.
Esideme further said that they got a resolution from the governing board of FIIRO addressed to the defendants and “our finding shows that the certificate which he claimed he had obtained in 2002 would not suffice…
“The resolution was addressed to the defendant, the certificate would take effect from 13th of February 2020 as against the date he had earlier written to notify the institute of completion of the programme in 2002.
The prosecution lawyer applied that the resolution is submitted as evidence but Mr Nwonu objected.
He said that it should be ” a matter for tradition” for such document emanating from FIIRO to its staff to be acknowledged.
But Emore said at the time the defendant “had ceased to come to the office and it was put in his file for record and when we requested for it FIIRO retrieved it from his file.”
In her ruling, the judge “sustained” the objection and adjourned to Wednesday, February 23.