Uche Nnaji Drops the Degree, Picks WAEC: When Plan A Is Under Review, Return to Factory Settings

That moment when someone asks for your highest qualification, and you dig past the diploma, the certificate of attendance from that weekend seminar, and the laminated “Best Participant” award, and pull out your WAEC like an old, trusted friend? Former minister Uche Nnaji just did exactly that, on an INEC form.

Here is the gist. Nnaji, the PDP’s candidate for Enugu governorship and number 13 on INEC’s final list, put his WAEC certificate down as his educational qualification. Gone was the University of Nigeria, Nsukka degree he cited in 2023 during his ministerial screening. That is the same degree at the centre of his trial, where the ICPC has charged him with six counts that include forging his UNN degree and NYSC certificates, and money laundering. He pleaded not guilty and has repeatedly denied forging anything. The trial is adjourned to 26 October. He is innocent until proven otherwise, as we always say, usually just before saying something else.

Premium Times says the change “raises fundamental questions.” Ordinary Nigerians have a simpler one: “Where did the degree go?” It’s like checking your wallet and finding the card that was there on Monday has left without notice.

But let us give WAEC its due. It is the certificate nobody argues with. It comes with a result-checker pin, a lifetime of nostalgia, and the memory of a nervous wait outside a cyber café. You scratched the card, found a C6 in a subject you never studied, and still thanked God. Everyone has been there. And as far as we understand, the constitution asks only for school certificate level, so on paper it does the job. Think of it as showing up to the wedding in a decent shirt because the agbada has “gone for dry cleaning.” It will get you in. People will still talk.

UNN, according to the reports, has said he was admitted in 1981 but never graduated, and NYSC authorities disowned the certificate he held. He denies all of it. That is for the court to decide. Our only job is to make you laugh, and we are very good at it.

Enugu voters will now ask the sacred question of every Nigerian document: “Do you have the original and two photocopies?” Never has a nation loved photocopies so deeply and trusted originals so cautiously.

Whatever the court says on 26 October, one lesson is clear. Keep your result slip safe. You never know when the nation will ask for it.