By Sebastine Chukwuebuka Okafor Ph.D
Certificate or document forgery can be defined as the act of making a false document, knowing it is false, and intending that it will be accepted as genuine to harm another person. According to Section 465 of the Criminal Code (Southern Nigeria), “A person who makes a false document or writing knowing it to be false, and with intent that it may in any way be used or acted upon as genuine, whether in Nigeria or elsewhere, to the prejudice of any person, is said to forge the document or writing.” In the same way, Section 362 of the Penal Code (Northern Nigeria) says forgery is making any false document with the intent to cause damage or injury, or to support any claim or title. Both laws clearly state that forgery is a serious crime that can lead to imprisonment.
Certificate or document forgery can be divided into different areas. These include the act committed (false making or altering a real document), the intention behind it (knowing it is false and planning to deceive), the nature of the document (public, private, or legal), the legal effect (whether the forgery itself causes harm or is used to commit another offence), and the stage of use (whether the document is made, kept, or presented).
To start with, forgery can be grouped based on the act carried out. This covers false making, which means creating a fake document, and alteration, which means changing a real document without permission. For example, someone may print a fake certificate or change dates and names on a real one to deceive others.
It can also be grouped by intention. For a document to be seen as forged, the person must know it is false and intend to deceive. If someone uses a fake document without knowing, it is not forgery. But if they know and still use it to get a job, power, or other benefits, it is forgery.
Another way to group it is by the type of document. There are public documents like government certificates, ID cards, and official letters; private documents like personal agreements and receipts; and legal documents like cheques, wills, and deeds. Forging public or legal documents attracts heavier punishment because they affect the public and involve legal rights or money.
In the same vein, forgery can be grouped by legal effect. Substantive forgery happens when the fake document itself causes harm or creates a false impression. Instrumental forgery happens when a forged document is used to commit another offence, like using a fake ID to collect a loan.
Moreso, forgery can be grouped by the stage of the act. It may happen during the making or changing of the document, when someone keeps a forged document knowing it is fake, or when it is presented or used as if it is real. All these stages are treated seriously under Nigerian law.
Going from the above, it is rare to come across an average Nigerian that is not involved in one form of certificate forgery or another. This is because, aside from the educational certificates such as First School Leaving Certificate, WASCE, NECO, NABTEB, BSc, MSc, and PhD, there are other documents that Nigerians forge such as NEPA bill, voter’s card, international passport, vehicle particulars, driver’s license, tax clearance, local government certificate of origin, tinted permit, police extracts, court affidavits, amongst others. These documents are forged with different intentions for different purposes such as to cut cost, evade checks, solve urgent needs, do financial transactions, impersonate someone, and so on.
In all these, people who do it see it as a normal thing that shouldn’t be taken too seriously. What has kept this act seen as trivial is that most of the people involved are from agencies or establishments charged with fighting it, such as the police, army, civil defense, and vehicle traffic officers. They are always in possession of either, depending on the purpose or usage. It is also worthy to note that forging any of these documents comes with other legal implications, as it involves forging someone’s signature aside from the document itself.
This brings us to another angle, which is why it is still rampant as well as why there is a lack of sensitization about the dangers it poses. These acts are rampant because the agencies involved in checkmating them do not have the needed facilities, whereas others doing this are not legally authorized to do so. For example, a police officer checking a driver’s license cannot detect a fake one and can always be maneuvered, unlike when Federal Road Safety Corps members do that. The same also goes with vehicle particulars when the police and VIOs are involved. Because of the abuse of job description, it has become almost impossible to curb or circumvent. Someone has to know the original before identifying the fake, and that is why, when the perpetrators see those who can detect it, they tend to avoid any form of encounter with them.
Forging these documents has been seen as a normal thing, and thus the sensitization is usually seen as insignificant. It is also important to know that medical records forgery is very rampant, as most of the documents presented to gain certain favors in offices are either forged at business centres or originally faked by a medical practitioner who issues them to solve a particular problem.
However, when some begin to raise questions such as, can this issue be curtailed? If not, what are the dangers ahead? It can only be curtailed when the investigating agencies start being transparent with the issuance processes. This is because, when someone looks at the process of getting a driver’s license, it is always clear that the intent is to collect money and not to teach or correct any driving anomaly, because FRSC does not have the capacity to fulfill judiciously all the requirements such as manpower and equipment, because being in possession of a driver’s license in Nigeria does not actually make someone a good driver but rather provides a legal ground for an amateur to carry vehicles around. What about police extracts that do not have a verification code, and also do not provide any verification channel for those demanding for it; the same with other documents? This brings us to the need to digitize the issuance of these documents to identify the fake ones. This also goes for identity cards. But why would a firm or agency demand for a document that does not have the powers or access to verify its authenticity?
Moving ahead on the solutions, one major solution is to strengthen the verification process of documents through the use of modern technology. Digitizing all forms of document issuance and linking them to a central database will make it difficult for forged copies to pass through security checks. If agencies can access a shared system in real time, it will reduce the loopholes currently exploited by offenders, but this appears to be practically impossible in Nigeria of today.
Another way forward is for government agencies to improve staff training and equip personnel with tools to detect fake documents easily. Sensitization campaigns should also be intensified to educate the public on the legal consequences of forgery. It is also very important to make the process and intention of their acquisition more transparent and accessible so that people will have fewer reasons to resort to forgery, and offenders will find it harder to succeed.