Minister steps down over graft scandal

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday accepted the resignation of Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun, who said she stepped down over allegations of using a forged certificate to avoid participation in the country’s mandatory one-year national youth service scheme. Adeosun, a top Cabinet member and a former investment banker who promoted the government’s policy to boost growth following a recent recession, said in a statement that she believed she was exempt from the service scheme but felt bound to resign because of the administration’s ‘focus on integrity’. A report on the EWN site notes that Adeosun allegedly used a forged exemption certificate to avoid participation in the scheme. She said her understanding was that she was exempted because she had moved back to Nigeria from the UK, where she was born after she had passed the required minimum age.

A report on the Fin24 site notes that the change is unlikely to have an impact on economic policies in Africa’s biggest oil producer, which is recovering from an economic slump in 2016 and holding general elections early next year, according to Malte Liewerscheidt, vice-president of the risk advisory group Teneo Intelligence. ‘Adeosun is not a political heavy-weight and her resignation and replacement would be highly unlikely to alter Nigeria’s overall fiscal and economic policies,’ he said in an e-mailed note. Buhari’s government hasn’t rushed to dismiss the allegations, Liewerscheidt said. As Finance Minister, Adeosun helped lead the economy out of its worst slump in 25 years after the price of crude, its main export, fell. She also instituted a whistle-blower policy and helped push reforms to boost Nigeria’s tax collection to increase non-oil revenue as the West African nation seeks to wean itself off oil.