Just when the dust raised by ‘the no school certificate’ that’s been rocking the polity lately is yet to settle down, it seems another female Lagos lawmaker, Honourable Mosunmola Sangodara has decided to take a notable position on the disreputable list of prominent Nigerians with certificate scandals attached to their names.
Recent investigations has it that the lawmaker, who is currently representing an urbane society like Surulere constituency 2 at the Lagos State House of Assembly, has fake credentials that she submitted to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the purpose of her election.
Mosunmola, we gathered has a fake Higher National Diploma (HND) certificate from Yaba College of Technology where she claimed she did her HND programme in Business Administration.
Her official profile on the Lagos House of Assembly (LAHA) Website supports the claim.
Meanwhile, the document obtained from the school detailing those who graduated from the school the year she claimed has no record of the lawmaker or anyone close to her name.
There is also no proof that the exemption letter she got from NYSC is genuine because it is strange that she got the exemption letter before she entered the school which is not in any way possible.
Many who are privy to the document she submitted wondered why she didn’t do her calculation well when forging the document to have made such a blunder on the dates.
Although she claimed she was at a time at the Lagos state polytechnic for her OND and at another time at Yaba Tech for her HND, many are wondering why she couldn’t stick to her WAEC result or at most that of her OND instead of her claim of Yabatech, which they feel was needless.
Also, swearing under oath is a major crime in the country and she shouldn’t have sucked that bait of wanting to impress her people if truly she is wanted, they also reasoned.
Many of her constituents are appealing to all the antigraft agencies in Nigeria today to investigate the case and serve her the required punishment if she’s found culpable aside the usual disqualification.
Since the inception of the recent democracy in Nigeria, many politicians especially lawmakers
have been exposed for this wrongdoing. In 1999, for example, a former Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Salisu Buhari, was entangled in several lies that led him into the Hollowed Chambers.
The disgraced lawmaker had falsified his age and academic endowments, claiming he had attended the
University of Toronto, Canada. This was refuted by the academy, while the Ahmadu Bello University, Kaduna State, had expelled him for using fake credentials to gain admission.
The embattled lawmaker eventually came out to apologize to the whole country.
Also, a serving senator, Dino Melaye, included Harvard University and the London School of Economics and Political Science as some of the schools he attended.
This turned out to be false, as both institutions denied his studentship.
Now, people are asking: will honourable Mosunmola do the Honourable thing by admitting and apologising? Only time will tell.