The Federal Ministry of Aviation has pulled down the profile of embattled Minister Stella Oduah from its website, in what appears an open admission that her bio contained falsehood and misleading claims.
Although the website is still functioning, the link to Ms. Oduah’s profile has been deactivated as at 12.32 p.m. Nigerian time Thursday, when our reporter visited.
The link now leads visitors to a 404 error suggesting the profile page had been taken down.
Mrs. Oduah, and her associates have spent the last two days scrambling to clean up the minister’s biographies on the Internet, following allegations that she lied about her academic qualifications.
Initially , her profile on the Ministry of Aviation was revised, with references to St. Paul’s College removed.
The Wikipedia page of the minister was also edited and it now has no reference to the university Mrs. Oduah attended. The last edit on the Wikipedia page was done at 14:41 p.m. Nigerian time Tuesday.
All links and reference materials on the Wikipedia page capable of linking the minister to the university that has disowned her have also been deleted.
Even the minister’s personal website was reviewed to remove any reference to St. Paul’s College.
The minister had claimed that she earned Bachelor and Masters degrees from St. Paul’s College but her claim to a masters degree has since been punctured.
PREMIUM TIMES has also determined that the minister lied in her claim that she was awarded a honorary doctorate by a non-existing Pacific Christian University in the United States.
Mrs. Oduah had since October been enmeshed in a a N255million armoured cars scandal in which she was accused of compelling an agency under her supervision, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, to buy her two exotic bullet cars at clearly inflated prices.
The purchase of the cars generated outrage for weeks because its cost was inflated, and it was neither listed in the government-approved budget nor did it comply with the Nigeria’s public procurement law.
The House of Representatives has since asked President Goodluck Jonathan to sack the minister but the president has failed to act.
