THE governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Enugu State, Dr Peter Mbah, is presently in crisis over an alleged fake National Youth Service Corps discharge certificate he parades.
Reliably sources told Hobnob News that Mbah, one of the frontline candidates for the March 11 governorship election in Enugu State, fainted inside the NYSC headquarters, Abuja, on Tuesday where he had gone to find out if the corps indeed issued a letter flaunted by a Non-Governmental Organisation regarding his NYSC discharge certificate.
According to Hobnob News reports , Mbah upon hearing that the letter was authentic, slumped and was rushed to the office of the DG where he later came around.
Another source told SaharaReporters that PDP stakeholders and political hawks held a marathon meeting on Tuesday night at the residence of former governor of the old Anambra State, Chief Jim Nwobodo, to find a way around the certificate forgery, coupled with numerous litigations over the primary that brought him as the governorship candidate of the party.
A group, Total Support for Rule of Law and Justice Initiative, had, at a press conference announced that it had utilised the Freedom of Information Act to compel the NYSC to divulge information regarding the certificate Mbah submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) In response, the NYSC disowned the certificate.
Sequel to the informations obtained from NYSC, the group approached the Abuja chief magistrate court, Wuse Zone 6, to request Mbah’s disqualification for presenting a forged certificate to INEC.
The court subsequently following the credible evidence adduced by the plaintiff, granted its application and ordered the Inspector-General of police to, within two weeks, investigate a case of certificate forgery brought against Mbah.
If Mbah gets disqualified, he won’t be eligible to take part in the contest scheduled for March 11. The Electoral Act says a person who submits a false document to INEC will be disqualified.
The Enugu State PDP Campaign Council had, yesterday, dismissed the group’s claims as frivolous, stating that both the purported Mbah certificate and NYSC’s letter disowning it were all fabricated. A media director of the campaign council, Nana Ogbodo, who signed the statement, said it was the opposition at work.
Apparently in a bid to avoid a collision with the law and imminent disqualification, Mbah stormed the NYSC to verify the authenticity of the document. He was informed that the document (its letter) is authentic and nothing could be done about it. He slumped and he was ushered into the office of the DG where he was revived.
He later sought to meet a police AIG but was informed that the AIG was not in town.
Mbah’s bid for the Enugu governorship has been dogged by scandals. He and three others were detained by the EFCC in 2007. They had to enter into a plea bargain with the EFCC in 2015 after they returned stolen assets worth billions of naira to the state. A House of Reps committee once indicted his business, Pinnacle Oil and Gas, for oil subsidy fraud.
How he emerged as the PDP candidate on May 25, 2022, remains a subject of controversy also. At least three suits are in court to challenge the sharp practices that preceded the PDP primaries in Enugu State. One judgment (on the time frame between the date INEC was notified of the primaries and the actual dates of the primaries) is expected on February 15
