Peter Mbah’s case at the tribunal may become increasingly hopeless if he fails to explain the allegations of certificate forgery
4 min read
Peter Mbah
By Emeka Ugwuonye
On the one hand the case at the Enugu Electoral Tribunal is a case of who won the governorship election in Enugu State in March 2023. But in truth, it is has also become a case of the integrity and honesty of the man known as Peter Mbah. There is no victory for Peter Mbah if in the end, the outcome of the case shows that Peter Mbah forged his NYSC certificate or that he knowingly tendered fake document in other to qualify to run for the office as Governor. You can be Governor or President, but one thing you don’t want to be is a crook or a rogue. As a Governor, your term will come to an end one day. As President, your term will come to an end one day. But as a crook and a liar, your shame will have no end. So, Peter Mbah should understand that the trial is also about his character as a human being. We have seen again and again how powerful political figures fall from grace to grass. Everything does not end in becoming the Governor. Peter Mbah should know that more than anyone else. All glory is fleeting. When accused of forging a certificate, all bets are off.
Nothing in the case at hand tests Peter Mbah’s integrity more than the lies and forgeries he allegedly committed over his NYSC certificate. I have before me the following documents that pose strong evidence to sustain the allegations that the Governor-elect probably committed certificate forgery:
(1) I have a letter dated 3rd April, 2003. It is a handwritten letter. It is titled APPLICATION FOR REMOBILIZATION. That letter was addressed to the Director General of the NYSC.
(2) I have another letter dated 24th April, 2003. This letter is typewritten. It is also titled APPLICATION FOR REMOBILIZATION. Again, it was addressed to the Director General of the NYSC.
In these two letters, Peter Mbah was asking the NYSC to remobilization him, i.e., to post him to a place where he would complete his National Service. It is important to remember the dates of these letters. It is also important to know that by these letter, Peter Mbah admitted that as of the dates of these, he had not completed his national service under the NYSC scheme.
(3) Finally, I have a letter dated 7th May, 2003, titled RE: APPLICATION FOR REMOBILIZATION, MR. MBAH PETER M. This letter was from the office of the Director General of NYSC as a reaction to the letters in (2) above. This letter was directed to the Director, NYSC Secretariat, Lagos. The purpose of this letter was stated as:
“to request [the Director] to re-instate [Peter Mbah] to continue his service year from where he stopped, with effect from May, 2003”
Now, you can see that Peter Mbah could not have completed his NYSC before May, 2003.
ROBLEM NO. 1 FOR MBAH:
The NYSC Certificate Mbah submitted to the INEC says that he passed out (completed) his NYSC program on 6th January 2003. You can see that something is wrong. How could he complete his NYSC before he applied for remobilization on 3rd April, 2003 and repeated the application on 24th April, 2003? So, the certificate he tendered to iNEC is presumptively a forged or fake document as it could could not have been validly issued by the NYSC.
PROBLEM NO. 2 FOR MBAH:
The NYSC letter dated 7th May, 2003, requesting to mobilize Peter Mbah for youth service took effect “from May 2003”. Meanwhile, Mbah started work as Chief of Staff at the Enugu State Government House in June 2003. So, Mbah, the Youth Corper, was at the same time Mbah the Chief of Staff. You never knew that once upon a time the Chief of Staff to the Government of Enugu State was a Corper while serving as Chief of Staff. But beside any joke, it was a violation of both the laws governing NYSC and the laws of Enugu State Civil Service for a supposedly serving Youth Corper to be the Chief of Staff.
What Mbah needs to understand is that he has two battles to win now. First, he has to win the battle over his claim to being the winner of the 2023 governorship election. Second, he has to win the battle over his integrity and allegations that he forged official document, to wit; an important certificate upon which his entire public career is based. If Mbah is shown to have committed forgery, regardless of the outcome of the tribunal, he will be amenable to impeachment by the House of Assembly. He must therefore quickly find a way to explain the apparent forgery of his NYSC certificate.
