Four days after the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) testified at the Enugu Governorship and House of Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal that the NYSC discharge certificate 0808497 presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate in the 2023 general election, Peter Mbah, is forged, the Southeastern Zone of the Network of Evangelical Bishops of Nigeria (NEBN) has demanded that Mbah, who was controversially declared the winner of the poll by the electoral body last March 22, “resign forthwith in his own interest”.
An early resignation will save time, anxiety, and money for all parties in the litigation over the poll outcome and the entire Enugu State, according to the bishops in a statement this morning in Enugu entitled “Peter Mbah: Just Go Now!” and signed by the NEBN Southeast zonal chairman, Bishop Samuel Ani, and the acting secretary, Bishop Emmanuel Eneh.
“The resignation is likely to soften the mind of the authentic winner of the election when he assumes office”, observed the senior religious leaders.
The bishops pledged to work towards getting a soft landing for Mbah if “he courageously does the right thing now, rather than continue to attempt to go the whole judicial hog which will infuriate both the authentic governor and the Enugu people into demanding his arrest, trial and long imprisonment for forgery, among other grave offences”.
The religious leaders lamented what they called serious revelations at the tribunal last Friday, calling them an unprecedented scandal in the history of the state “which are incompatible with the moral standards expected of any person aspiring to any public office”.
The bishops stated that all Enugu people were demoralised to hear the “ignonimous news reported by at the tribunal by the NYSC Director of Certification, Alhaji Ibrahim Muhammed, that the supposed governor visited the NYSC Director General, Brigadier General Yashau Dogara Ahmed, and pleaded with him to claim that the fake certificate he is parading is genuine”.
General Ahmed had on Friday, May 19, stated on Arise Television in Lagos during the morning programme to mark the NYSC 50th anniversary that the contentious certificate did not emanate from the organisation, confirming the claim by Muhammed in a letter of February 1 that the document is a forgery.
“Quite distressful to the Enugu people”, continued the senior religious leaders, “is that Mbah claims to be doing the compulsory one-year service the same year he was holding down a full-time job as the Chief of Staff to Governor Chimaraoke Nnamani, as the documents of his appointment and his acceptance tendered at the tribunal on Friday demonstrate eloquently.
“This young man who pretends to be our elected governor has done Enugu and its great people more reputational damage before the world than all politicians from the state combined since the creation of the state on August 27, 1991″.
Given that the governor has what they described as an incurably defective case, the bishops requested Mbah to resign forthwith “and stop wasting the precious time and resources of the Enugu people on unproductive legal proceedings”.
Among Nigerian public officers who have recently resigned over certificate scandals is Mrs Kemi Adeosun, President Muhammedu Buhari’s first Minister of Finance who was forced to quit after the discovery that her NYSC discharge certificate was a forgery. She incidentally attended the University of East London, like Mbah.
Other fake certificate casualties in recent years include Mohammed Salusi, the first Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1999 who falsely claimed to have attended the University of Toronto, and Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Deputy Governor-elect of Bayelsa State, who was on February 13, 2020, prevented, together with Governor-elect David Lyon, from being sworn-in by the Supreme Court for an educational certificate forgery.
Mbah is also facing serious legitimacy challenges over his declaration by INEC as triumphant in the governorship race arising from the number of votes purportedly cast in his favour.
The Enugu State INEC office announced that he scored over 31,000 votes in his native Nkanu East Local Government Area, but the national headquarters in Abuja reduced the number to a little over 15,000, and announced the development at a news conference on March 22 in Enugu.
“Corrupt INEC persons working in cahoots with Mbah made sure that he was awarded enough votes in this unintelligent drama to enable them to pronounce the PDP the winner”, declared Benedict Nwobodo, the new executive director of the Alliance of Enugu State Professionals.
“The Labour Party won 88% of the votes cast in the presidential election, seven of the eight House of Representatives in the state, two of the three Senate seats, and 14 of the 24 House of Assembly seats.
“The same pattern was, of course, followed in the gubernatorial race”.