Certificate racketeering: We were denied fair hearing – Wealth Root GM
By Adedeji Adenle
The GM of Wealth Root, Benedict Okonmah has denied reports coming from an online publication in “Sahara Reporters” where it alleged that a possible certificate racketeering is going on at the Lagos State University.
On November 6, 2023 Sahara Reporters had made a publication alleging that the institution partakes in certificate racketeering where they charge people as much as N3m to get their certificate done.
In a Media publication, the GM stated that the publication is false and “full of fallacies, capable of putting both the Management and University in a bad light” as they were never contacted during investigations before publishing.
Narrating the organizations’ side of the incident, he said, “In the year 2020, a concerned member of the Alumnus drew the University Management’s attention to the alleged certificate racket going on in the University.”
“Thereafter, Management of Lagos State University under the immediate past administration promptly reachedout to us. This led to commissioning us to act as an UNDERCOVER AGENT to unravel members of the syndicate that were involved in the act of manipulating the University server and subsequently imputing records of non-graduates of the University.”
“One of our key assignments by the University was to observe the modus operandi of this syndicate, i.e process of recruiting their clients; administrative and academic process up to the point of clearance, all which requiredsome of us to be part of them physically. We were also detailed to operate alongside some security agents to apprehend the perpetrators regardless of how highly placed they are. In the course of our investigation, we discovered that this act was being perpetrated ONLY through the University EXTERNAL SYSTEM otherwise known as SATELITE CAMPUSES, and not the FULL-TIME REGULAR ACADEMIC PROGRAMME as it was being projected in some media.”
“Further findings by us also revealed that somemembers of these syndicates had once worked at the University’s External System at one point or the other, and so took advantage of the University’s resolve to wind up the External System by clearing the backlog of yet to be graduated students on the External System platform, otherwise known as Part-Time students at the time.”
He said that acts been alleged were already under investigation since 2020 after being brought to the notice of the authorities and the school was actively working on it and had identified culprits involved in the acts and was actively dealing with the issues and looking to block all loopholes including final recommendations to University. He said when investigations had been concluded, the outcome would be made notice to the public.
