Enugu 2023: The governorship position and NYSC certificate

BY RAYMOND OKORIE

It still baffles that in the midst of all the challenges facing Nigerian people at this critical moment, all that the Enugu opposition finds reasonable to offer the electorate are theatrics and a deluge of malicious and detracting propaganda rather than a manifesto or blueprint of hope and prosperity.

The latest gambit is the claim that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate Peter Mbah’s National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) discharge certificate was forged.

The bottom line of the hatchet job was to have Mbah disqualified from the governorship race. They were already celebrating, bandying a letter purportedly from the federal capital territory magistrate court, directing the assistant inspector-general of police, Zone 7, to cause an investigation in respect of criminal complaint of alleged forgery against Mbah.

However, one wonders if they have really averted their minds to the provisions of the law in their plans. Section 29 (5) of the Electoral Act 2022 makes it clear that the disqualification of candidates can only be on the grounds of those constitutional requirements for the position he or she seeks. In other words, you can’t even disqualify someone assuming he or she presented a fake document that is not among the ones listed by the constitution for the particular office he or she seeks.

In the case of the office of the governor of a state, Section 177 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) unequivocally lists the qualifications as citizenship by birth, attainment of the age of 35, membership of a political party, which shall be the sponsor, and education up to at least school certificate level or its equivalent. Participation in the NYSC is not one of them.

The courts, including the supreme court have made it abundantly clear that participation in the NYSC is not a constitutional requirement for holding public office. In Kemi Adeosun’s case, for instance, the court eloquently stated: “For the avoidance of doubt, participation in the NYSC scheme is not a yardstick to be elected into any of the legislative houses, be it in the States or at the National Assembly, ditto (likewise) for ministerial appointment, despite the National Youth Service Corps Act being an integral part of the constitution by virtue of section 315 (5) of the Constitution.”

So, besides Mbah’s unimpeachable integrity, there is absolutely no motivation or compulsion to include an NYSC certificate if it was not genuine since he never needed it to qualify for the office of the governor in the first place.

Meanwhile, it is noteworthy that an allegation of forgery does not expressly amount to forgery. It will have to be diligently investigated by the police. In the unlikely event that the police established a prima facie case, it still does not automatically disqualify a candidate from the race. It has to be heard in a court of competent jurisdiction where both the prosecutor and defendant will have to argue their case, while the court has the final verdict.

Interestingly, the NYSC certificate is just one out of the many propaganda that has neither helped the opposition parties nor Enugu people. If it is not the lazy allegation that Peter Mbah bought the Enugu governorship seat with some crazy loads of billions, it is the propaganda that he built Pinnacle Oil and Gas Ltd (presently Nigeria’s number one in the petroleum downstream subsector) with Enugu money; or a ridiculous tale that his ancestors were of Ezza origin, not Enugu.

They have even gone as far as forging evidence and filing the frivolous and malicious Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/2257/2022 with same, praying the court to disqualify Mbah from the governorship contest on the fallacious grounds that he allegedly entered a guilty plea and plea bargain along with Chimaroke Nnamani and some officials of his administration in Charge No. FHC/L/09C/2007.

It has been established that even in his twenties and early 30s, Mbah, through the dints of hard work, integrity, and stroke of providence, was already importing at least 18 containers of electronics and motor spare parts from Europe. That was even before he travelled to the UK for his law degree and later proceeded to the Nigerian Law School in Enugu, from where he had a stint with the public sector.

It has also emerged that Mbah’s name and those of his two other colleagues in the Chimaroke Nnamani administration were struck out from the charge sheet by the court at the instance of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) two years before the 7th July 2015 plea bargain in that case.

His name was struck out before the commencement of the trial. Yet George Ogara, a senior lawyer and self-proclaimed deputy governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu, and one Ejike Obumneme Esq, proceeded to willfully participate in the creation and use of false evidence to file a suit intended to maliciously injure and destroy Mbah’s political ambition and his reputation as a renowned entrepreneur.

Even though they undoubtedly knew or ought to reasonably know the true position, they consciously filed the suit in clear breach of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners. Good enough, Mbah has since dragged them before the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee.

I think anyone or party that is serious about going to the Lion Building should wake up and smell the coffee because there cannot be any shortcut to Enugu’s government house. There are still about 30 days left before the 11th of March 2023 governorship election. Enugu people will be happy to see the opposition expand the political choices before the electorate by launching and marketing their manifestos or blueprint.

For instance, by 29th May 2024, you can measure Mbah’s performance by his concrete promises if elected in March and sworn in May 2023.

Enugu will remember to measure his promise to exponentially grow Enugu’s economy seven folds from the current $4.4bn to $30bn in eight years. They will remember that he pledged to construct 10,000km of roads in eight years, and achieve zero percent poverty headcount index, among others.

Now let’s pause and ask ourselves, what has the opposition promised? How can we measure them? Are we going to measure them with the release of “Ego Ndi Enugu” or NYSC certificate forgery allegation, or the allegation of plea bargain that court documents have put a lie to? What? Absolutely nothing! This is dangerous for our democracy.

Okorie is an Enugu-based political analyst