By Uzair Adam Imam
Senator Lawal Adamu Usman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial Zone, has bitterly denied the allegation swirling around that he forged certificates and threatened to take legal action.
Senator Usman was said to have presented a fraudulent academic certificate as part of the documents presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the 2023 election.
Reports have it that a former student of the Department Public Administration of Ameer Shehu Idris College of Advanced Studies, Zaria, had claimed that the serving senator used her result to gain admission into a university.
But in his reaction, Senator Lawal Adamu Usman, in a letter through his solicitors Messrs E. N. Ogbu & Associates, stated that the story published on 12th July 2023 with the caption: “Kaduna Senator used my result for varsity admission, witness tells tribunals” is libelous and defamatory, and therefore threatened legal action.
The letter further reads: “However, the procedure to obtain these facts were thrown to the wind with respect to the reportage in itself as same, according to our Client, were a calculated effort to wickedly dent an image and status earned over the years by dint of hard work.
“Our Client has suffered emotional and psychological trauma over the “fake news” printed to dent his hard-earned reputation in the eyes of the public over information that is not only false but inexistent.”
“The Nigerian Government has times without numbers strictly warned the generality of the public against spreading what is now known to be “fake news.”