Certificate forgery is on the increase in Nigeria particularly among public office holders and generally among Nigerians. This social problem is side by side the deteriorating standard of education in the cuntry.
Parents, Guardians and those who are responsible for imparting knowledge share in the blame for this vice.
In this interview, the Founder, Spiritual Hed and Grand Imam of Shafudeen-in-Islam Worldwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke opines that the Inability of the Federal Government to Sanitize the System has led to the increase in Certificate Forgery. Excerpts :
What do you think is responsible for the increasing rate of certificate forgery particularly among public office holders and among Nigerians generally ?
The socio-economic environment in Nigeria favors the unfortunate act of certificate forgery. This is because education acquisition is no more for the target of the three domains of affective, congnitive and psychomotor needs of the nation.
For example, education is expected to be responisble for the uplliftment of our ethos vis-a-vis moral discpiline and positive attitudinal values in an environment of literacy and numeracy.
Those with the opportunitiy of receiving education are mostly in the wanton land of corruption and bastardization of values and quality resulting in the abuse of office for many.
The cognitive domain equally failed to achieve in the realm of the Ivory Tower, Town and Gown Philosphy.
Instead of launching us into the competitive world of civilization, they confine themselves into the rhetoric of classroom work and when it comes to seeking for positions of power even within the confines of the academic world, some of them source for power from the devil in a dastardly manner, but use their religion as a cover up, in the process they throw into the dustbin the spirit of sportmanship, merit and excellence, to abuse the opportunity of research in the cognitive realm.
Till date, Nigeria lags behind in the area of human capital and material development, while our education fails to address squarely, the challenges of self sufficiency and management of population control, economic development and regulated environment.
The outcome of this, is our dependence on foreign ideas and equipment development always based on importation.
All these suggests that Nigeria’s education system has failed the litmust test for affective, cognitive and psychomotor domains, for Nigeria to be rated as the center of poverty in the world, this is coupled with the very high rate of insecurity, in which the lives of ordinary citizens have become so cheap, that same are sacrificed on a platter of dominance and oppression.
It is unfortunate that our certificate worth, is now controversially fraught with doubts in view of various reported cases of plagiarism, sex-for-marks through randy lecturers and certificate forgery.
Our environment favors all these because of our values, we turn upside down at the application realm of the acquired education by the various classes of grades given several graduates.
Fort example, Nigerian graduates in the First class category go into researches and the teaching profession. Those in the Second Class Upper or Lower category, regulate the activities of the first class category.
Most of those in the Third class category, join the bandwagon of our politicians who manage the affairs of the country.
Those in the Pass category rest their hopes on evangelical missions claiming to have control on the socio-spiritual lives of those in the other categories, but with poor knowledge of what it takes to have good governance, astute management and classical administration. They claim to be God sent and threaten the personalities in the various categories to lead them under the guise of counseling and spiritual directives.
The drop outs and those with very poor grades resort to various causative factors of insecurity such as armed robbery, pimping, drug trafficking and various other criminal acts to make the environment unsafe both for the people as well as been ungovernable for the ruling government to respect them and give them their own share of the national cake, since we as a nation place so much value on certificates without considering the process of acquiring it.
The system has by all reasoning, allowed the lazy ones to find their ways through fraudulent means of which cerificate forgery plays an important role.
For example, the cerificate btained through fraudulent means has a purpose, it is neither to promote values nor to increase knowledge or capacity, but rather it is to make money through easy means in total disregard for the dignity of labor.
Another example, is the fact that employment is now bought, bastardizing the essence of merit and execellence, which ensures that the beneficiary of the bought certificate is fraudulent at work to justify the cost of the employment.
Getting to the positions of power in the various political offices, Ministries, Departments and Agencies has become a game of do or die. This is not because they have the passion to serve the nation or make the system functionally efficient, but because of the attached material wealth.
The same goes for juicy positions of power, Governorship nd Commissionership, Presidential and Ministerial, also included are the positions in the National and state Houses of Assembly.
People crave to get there not because of the love they have for the nation, but because of the jumbo pay awaiting the winners.
Under these conditions, certificate forgery will go on because for every one person caught in the act hundreds will go undetected.
The craze for certificates would always be on the increase because of the great value attached to certificates and the inability of government to sanitize our educational system to respect wholesome ethical practices and our professional bodies’ failure to culturally live by the ethics and sanction offenders as appropriate without fear or favor.
To arrest this situation, the culture of disparities in remuneration must be revisited, starting from the downward review of the wages and allowances of the political class to stop the jumbo pay syndrome.
A thorough and meticulous investigation into the various sources of certification for all Nigerians in their various service points must be carried out withou delay or bias.
Of worry is that the system in Nigeria has made certificate forgery to be attractive while we have already murdered the culture of merit and dignity of labor. Let us retrace ur steps back to the ethical path of achieving success.
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