From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Enugu State, Mr Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, faces disqualification from the race over allegations of forgery of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Certificate, which he presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
A coalition group, Total Support for Rule of Law and Justice Initiative and Enugu Progressive Forum, disclosed this in Abuja on Monday.
The groups alleged that the NYSC in a letter dated February 1, 2023, confirmed that it did not issue the said Certificate of National Service presented to INEC by Mr Mbah.
In the copy of the letter released to newsmen at the press conference by the Coordinator of the groups, Cynthia Mabeokwu, the Corps, in paragraph 2 of the letter said, “we are pleased to inform you that the Certificate of National Service belonging to Mba Peter Ndubuisi with Certificate Number: A808297 forwarded for verification was not issued by the NYSC.”
The groups said that it had applied to authorities for information, clarification, verification, confirmation and explanation.
“As part of this quest for information, we wrote to the INEC and obtained Certified True Copies of all the documents and qualifications submitted by the various candidates to the commission,” the groups explained.
The groups called on the candidate to explain to voters in Enugu the circumstances of the alleged forgery adding, “this explanation should be in clear precise terms leaving no doubt in the minds of any person. It should not be with any prevarications, insults, deflections or evasion of the facts.
“Where candidate, Peter Ndubuisi Mbah has no explanation for this turn of events, we call on him to immediately apologise to our people and withdraw from the race forthwith and hand himself over to the police, confess his crime and be prosecuted.”
The groups also stated that in line with the provisions of the rule of law, it had filed a direct criminal complaint against Mr Mbah and that the Court had referred the Complaint to the Inspector General of Police for a thorough investigation and possible prosecution.
Citing provisions of the Constitution, the group insisted that any votes cast in favour of Mr Mbah for the election were bound to be declared wasted and void as they were votes cast for a person who was ab initio not qualified to stand for the elections.
“By Section 182(1)(j)of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, the Constitution provides Section 182(1) No person shall be qualified for election to the office of Governor of a State if (j) He has presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
“By the clear provisions of the Constitution, it has become undoubtedly true that Mr Peter Ndubuisi Mba is not qualified to contest for the election into the office of the Governor of Enugu State for the presentation of a forged NYSC Certificate to INEC,” the groups said.