The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu claims that the dispute surrounding the discharge certificate of Peter Mbah, the state’s incoming governor, is the result of a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts.
Mbah and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) have been at odds over the validity of his discharge certificate.
The governor-elect had stated that he returned to Nigeria and was accepted into the bar part 1 programme of the Nigerian law school after receiving his degree from the University of East London in 2000.
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He claimed that after finishing the first leg, he was told to enlist in the one-year NYSC course rather than spending time waiting for the bar part 2 curriculum.
After completing six months of NYSC, Mbah requested for and was granted permission to postpone the one-year mandated course so that he could pass the bar final exam. He was then re-mobilized to complete the service, which he did, according to Emeka Ozoani, his attorney, who testified in court.
However, in a letter dated February that was signed by Ibrahim Muhammad, the program’s director of certifications, NYSC claimed that Mbah’s certificate had not been issued by the corps.
As a result, Mbah sued NYSC, seeking N20 billion in damages, for what he claimed to be conspiracy, dishonesty, and misrepresentation of facts.
What NYSC DG Said
Reacting to the development, Yusha’u Ahmed, NYSC director-general, said he had met with the governor-elect and told him that the certificate was a counterfeit.
Ahmed said NYSC was yet to receive a court order or document confirming the suit by the Enugu governor-elect and would continue to stand by the “truth”.
I wonder how the issue of racketeering would come up when you are talking about an elite: somebody who is a graduate and well-enlightened. Where did you obtain your certificate? You do not know how we issue our certificate? You cannot go and collect certificates on the street or in a hotel, you should know better.
The governor-elect is a lawyer. I am not a lawyer, but I know as the DG of NYSC, I’m fully aware of this case. He came to me, I was frank with him, and I told him this certificate was not from us, However, he chose to go to court and sue. But as far as I’m concerned NYSC has not been sued. I’m just hearing about it. I have not seen a court order.
PDP Responds
The party said that the NYSC DG’s allegation was “in sync with the agency’s conspiracy, deceit, and wilful misrepresentation of facts” in a statement issued on Friday by Nana Ogbodo, spokesman for the Enugu state PDP campaign.
The statement states that Ahmed stated in a meeting that he was unaware that Mbah had gotten a discharge certificate from the NYSC and that he had not disputed the validity of the document as claimed by Mbah.
The situation in which the DG stated that he would not want to speak on the topic since it was in court was ironic, according to the party, as he went on to not only deny knowledge of the complaint and subsequent court order but also to behave in blatant disobedience of the court.
