Security
Presidency says certificate forgery by Kemi Adeosun, more of a crime than Isa Pantami’s support for terrorism
Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, has argued that the certificate forgery by Kemi Adeosun, ex-minister of finance, is more of a crime than the earlier support for terror groups expressed by Isa Pantami, minister of communications and digital economy.
Speaking during a Channels TV programme on Friday, Shehu said the presidency’s would have responded differently if Pantami had forged his certificate like Adeosun did.
Adeosun resigned as minister in September 2018 after it was reported that her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) exemption certificate was forged.
Pantami, on his part, had expressed extremist views in support of ideologies of terror groups such as Al-Qaeda and Taliban during his lectures as an Islamic scholar in the 2000s.
Asked why the presidency let Adeosun go but is quick to defend Pantami, Shehu said the latter’s case only involved people probing his thoughts during the said lectures.
“In the second case which is that of Pantami, you are probing the thoughts, what is called ‘McCarthyism’; you search the inner recesses of the minds of individuals, bring out things they have said or they are about to say or you think they would say and use that against them,” he said.
“If Pantami had forged certificate before coming into office, the attitude would have been different.”
