2027: The Origin of Ex- minister, Uche Nnaji’s alleged Certificate forgery

By Okwudili Nnamani, Enugu 

Many people may not know that the certificate forgery allegation against Chief Uche Nnaji, Nwakaibie started in 1999, when he contested Enugu East Senatorial District election under the platform of Alliance for Democracy (AD) against Senator Ken Nnamani a then chieftain of APP who within few weeks to the senate election decamped to PDP and was awarded the nomination of Enugu East under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Chimaroke Nnamani was just elected Governor in that year, and had earlier promised Uche Nnaji the Enugu East Senatorial District ticket. But he later changed his mind and decided to support Ken Nnamani for the ticket. Uche Nnaji,  left the PDP and picked the Senatorial form of AD, upon which he contested and won the election.

Ken Nnamani during the run-up and after the election accused Uche Nnaji of forgery or no certificate at all. There was no Peter Mbah then.

Two weeks after being declared winner of the Senatorial election, Uche Nnaji relinquished (surrendered) the ticket to Chief Jim Nwobodo. The rumour then was that President Obasanjo wanted an Igbo man, specifically, Nwobodo, to be Senate President.

But with the benefit of hindsight, did Uche Nnaji relinquish the position to Jim because he wanted him to be Senate President or was he scared by the certificate forgery allegation by Ken Nnamani?

Later in 2003  Ken Nnamani won the Enugu East senatorial post and later became the Senate President and Uche Nnaji made peace with him and was always seen hovering around Sen Nnamani but immediately Ken ended his tenure he distanced himself from Ken. Infact when he wanted to run for Governor he refused to extend to  Ken the courtesy of informing or consulting him as they say in political lingo. 

During the 2023 general election when Uche Nnaji ran for the governorship of Enugu State under the All Progressives Congress (APC) Sen Ken Nnamani once more revived the certificate forgery allegations against Uche Nnaji. 

In his APC Governorship nomination form Uche Nnaji submitted his West African School Certificate (WASC) instead of his acclaimed UNN degree certificate. Many party members were surprised. Again with the benefit of hindsight did he do that out of fear of being exposed or just a casual mistake?

Sen Ken Nnamani stoutly refused to support his guber ambition in 2023. Nnamani alleged at party meetings and press conferences that he doesn’t have the requisite certificate to be governor of Enugu state but many dismissed the allegations as political propaganda as Nnamani an APC member was openly supporting PDP Guber and Presidential candidates.

Then sometime around Sept 2023 Uche Nnaji was nominated as minister to represent Enugu State by President Bola Tinubu.

Uche Nnaji went to Senate screening and filed UNN results and even NYSC certificate!!! 

Again, Sen Ken Nnamani wrote a petition against him and submitted copies to senators of Enugu origin in the red chambers. Late Sen Okey Ezea released the petition. The LP senators wanted to query Uche Nnaji. But Chijioke Edeoga stepped in and pleaded with the LP senators to allow Uche Nnaji since he is from Enugu State.

Then suddenly the Senate gave practically most of the nominees a clean bill.

When former Speaker of Enugu State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon Eugene Odoh fell out with Uche Nnaji. Eugene Odoh was the main organizer and chairman of Uche Nnaji gubernatorial campaign committee as far back as 2020 and was the first person to inform the public and members of APC that Uche Nnaji would run for governor at his father’s funeral at Ukehe which was promptly and vociferously opposed by Senator Ken Nnamani at the event causing a major uproar at the Catholic Church ceremony in Ukehe. 

Later Eugene claimed Uche Nnaji stopped picking his calls prior to the 2021 APC Nat Convention when he supported Ken Nnamani and Rotimi Amaechi for Nat Deputy Chairman of APC and the later for the presidency.

Eugene Odo later teamed up with Ken Nnamani to repeatedly accuse Uche Nnaji of certificate forgery. In fact at every event and in all print, electronic and social media interviews Eugene made it a habit to accuse Uche Nnaji of certificate forgery. 

At a stage no one took him serious as he had also campaigned for PDP and Labour while still a member of APC which led to his suspension for anti-party activities. 

After he was appointed member of UNN governing council on the nomination of Gov Nwifuru a fellow former Speaker like him, he again raised the issue of certificate forgery against Uche Nnaji and vowed that investigation on the matter would be reopened.

In all the accusations by Ken Nnamani and Eugene Odoh, Uche Nnaji never replied them nor did he take them to court for defamation nor did he hire online thugs to attack, drag or blame them or is he afraid of them?

Then the Premium Times online newspaper carried out a detailed investigation on the matter and published a damning report indicting Uche Nnaji, even on NYSC certificate.

The President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu then made an investigation and asked Uche Nnaji to resign as Minister of Innovation science and technology and subsequently gave directives that the APC structure in Enugu State that was loyal to him be dissolved and a caretaker committee loyal to Gov Peter Mbah be set up in Enugu. 

Blame Game:

After his resignation, Uche Nnaji recruited some 8 online thugs and a  suspended female banker who all started an orchestrated  blame game and reverse psychology on social media.

They first blamed and dragged the UNN Vice Chancellor, Ortuanya, saying he will be sacked on or before 31st Oct 2025 as a ministerial panel of inquiry was already sitting in UNN. 

They accused the VC of tampering with Uche Nnaji’s certificate. But UNN VC was not there in 1999 when Ken Nnamani accused him of forgery. 

After UNN VC, Uche Nnaji now blamed Gov Peter Mbah. Then former Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and after that he now blamed Barr Ugochukwu Agballah, who bluntly refused to move the party structure to PDP as Uche Nnaji  demanded. 

Agballah and his exco had earlier threatened to go to court on the unconstitutional and illegal dissolution of the state, LGA and Ward structure of the party. 

However Hon Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi Ex Gov brokered a peace and reconciliation initiative where Gov Peter Mbah agreed to accommodate  members of the dissolved exco in the new caretaker committees and in the coming ward, LGA and State executives that will emerge during the party congress that will start on 2nd Feb 2026. Based on above the SEC discontinued the court cases and planned factionalization of the party.  

Uche Nnaji then instructed the party members to move to PDP but many of them refused to go. They rejected the idea of following him to PDP where he wants to contest for governorship of Enugu State in 2027. 

They said they are still in APC and followed Agballah to participate as members of the state caretaker. Uche Nnaji got embittered with Agballah and set his media dogs on him but Agballah refused to join issues with him. 

However the media attack and blame game did not seem to achieve its objective as over 95 percent of former executive officers of the party in the 260 wards and 17 LGAs and stakeholders pitched their tent with Agballah and they all recognized Gov Mba as the new leader of the party as is the practice and convention in any state where the Governor is a member of the party.  

What happened in Enugu is the same scenario in Benue, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa, Plateau, Kano states. In Benue the leader of the party was the Senator Akume the SGF but  the structure was taken from the SGF and given to Gov Alia. In Akwa Ibom the structure was formerly led by the Senate President but when the Gov joined APC he became the leader of the party. 

In Plateau State the National Chairman opposed the entrance of the Gov as both of them like Nnaji and Mba had both contested the governorship election of the state. Yet the structure was taken from the national chairman and given to the Gov of Plateau state. 

Many people wonder why Uche Nnaji and his social media thugs are blaming everyone but not Sen Ken Nnamani, who claims he has substantial proof of the UNN and NYSC certificates forgery. 

Although he knows he is not contesting governorship or any position for that matter in 2027, but he wants to destroy other peoples reputation knowing that the certificate forgery saga has done him national and international reputational damage. 

Nobody destroyed him, he destroyed himself as the forgery brings to question his character moreso when he had been accused by same persons of having been involved in businesses that was not reputable in the past.