Ohanaeze President, Chief Ogbonna In Alleged Certificate Forgery Scandal

CHUKA UBAH

The crisis rocking Ohanaeze Ndigbo Lagos State took another dimension following the alleged discovery that its President, Chief Solomon Ogbonna, fooled the whole Igbo by presenting forged a certificate which enable him to contest for the position in the State.

P.M.EXPRESS reports that apart from fooling the Igbo in Lagos State with the alleged fake certificate, Chief Ogbonna equally messed the apex Ohanaeze leadership led by the President General, Chief John Nwodo, who cleared him to contest for the President of Ohanaeze, Lagos State.

Police detectives at Alagbon,  Lagos, acting on a petition to the Inspector General of Police, have since commenced investigation on how Chief Solomon Ogbonna obtained the WAEC certificate he reportedly presented to Ohanaeze Secretariat in Enugu which belonged to another candidate but was changed to his name.

This was confirmed by the first President of Ohanaeze, Lagos State, Chief Uche John, who still expressed shock over the discovery and said such conduct had never happened since the history of Ohanaeze in Lagos State.

Trouble was said to have started after the apex leadership of Ohanaeze demanded for the Secondary School certificate from Ogbonna as condition stipulated by Ohanaeze for candidates to contest for such positions as was the case in the past.

It was gathered that Solomon Ogbonna, whose real name was Ogbonnaya Nwainyinya, from Ebonyi State, returned from Australia after he had escaped from prison and changed his name to Solomon Ogbonna Aguene in order to hide his identity.

He was said to have procured the certificate belonging to another candidate and sent to Ohanaeze Secretariat which turned out to be fake.

In a letter sighted by P.M.EXPRESS to the President General of Ohanaeze worldwide from the chambers of Cornermark Solicitors dated 12th December, 2019, it stated that Chief Solomon deposed oath stating that he was educated up to Secondary School level and he possessed a Secondary School certificate Education, SSCE and submitted the documents to the Committee which screened the contestants.

“He circulated and forwarded a copy of Certificate of 1997 December SSCE bearing the details as – Name Solomon Ogbonna Aguene, certificate number, 0210223 and candidate’s number, 24857222. Upon the above, Cornermark Solicitors chambers applied to WAEC for verification and confirmation of the results and it was confirmed that it was a forged document.”

Further investigation revealed that the WAEC certificate, which Chief Solomon Ogbonna Aguene reportedly forged, belonged to one Akpa Ikechukwu, who sat for the examination at Satellite Town in Lagos with candidate and certificate numbers as given by WAEC.

When Chief Solomon Ogbonna was contacted, he said certificate does not make a good leader. He said that Ohanaeze was demanding for certificate and they got one invariably confirming that he might have fooled Ohanaeze Ndigbo with forged certificate.

Chief John Uche said by such gross conduct, Chief Solomon Ogbonna has automatically lost his position as President of Ohanaeze Lagos State and the stakeholders have made this known to Ohanaeze worldwide led by Chief Nwodo.

P.M.EXPRESS also gathered that a new President of Ohanaeze may have emerged following the conduct and recent Court judgement voiding Ogbonna’s election as President.