Perhaps, the greatest mistake the opposition parties in Enugu State made in 2023 governorship election was to underate the vision, mission, capacity, preparedness and quality of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Barr. Peter Ndubuisi Mba and his party. Anyone who has followed Mbah’s trajectory should know that he is a rare human being. He is not a typical Nigerian politician who can easily be swayed or carried away with the fantasies and razzmatazz around. He has seen both sides of the coin, having served as a public officer in government at a very young age and made an unprecedented breakthrough in the private sector as an outstanding entrepreneur.

I was not despondent but surprised after the National Assembly/ Presidential elections, which the Labour party made a significant impact in Enugu State, having latched on Mr. Peter Obi’s presidential ambition and massive support that trailed it from the people and churches in Southeast region, the party leaders and supporters started bragging of being popular and formidable. The opposition, particularly the Labour party and their supporters, who are mostly PDP aggrieved members, had the erroneous belief and overconfidence that the governorship election will be a walkover and done deal for them. They counted their eggs before they were hatched. This is even when it was clear that Mba is the tree with the most attractive and ripened fruits and the best among the equals. The opposition delusionally and hypocritically gloated over these glaring facts, and the same time admitted them by continuing to throw stones at him on social media with all sorts of fabrications, concoctions, lies, propaganda and campaign of calumny.
Despite the opposition, especially Labour Party’s social media wiles against Mbah and the PDP, Mbah remained unperturbed, focused, and determined. He showed that he could not be easily cowed or blackmailed. He kept his head cool and set his eyes on the coveted crown and allowed his traducers and oppositions to chase shadows and play to the gallery.

After the election, Mbah emerged the winner in the keenly contested election. This is despite the Labour Party’s orchestrated ding- dong affair that delayed the final announcement of the election result for almost a week.

For those who may have forgotten or suffer from amnesia, let’s go down memory lane once again. It would be recalled that among the social media fabrications hyped and peddled against Mbah by the opposition before the primaries and elections was that he is an ex-convict, having entered plea bargain alongside his former boss, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani and others. In their desperation, the opposition and Mbah’s opponents forged court documents in this regard. They used proxies to approach the Federal High Court, Abuja, and compromised a staff of Federal Ministry of Justice with the fake documents to nail or indict Mbah by all means.

The Federal Ministry of Justice staff misled the then Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), with the fake court documents to prosecute Mbah. In a bid to embark on Mbah’s prosecution and after conducting due diligence, Malami discovered to his greatest surprise, shock and disappointment that the documents were fake. Malami hurriedly wrote public letter of apology to Mbah on the matter through his counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN) stating that the documents on Mbah being ex convict was fake and that he was misled with it by a staff of his Ministry.

Since the Attorney General and Minister of Justice wrote the apology letter to Mbah which he made public, nobody has countered or challenged him with a contrary evidence, not even the Enugu opposition particularly the Labour Party’s social media mountebanks who hyped and peddled the forged documents on social media before as if they were genuine. In short, nobody talked or is talking about it again since then.

Was it also not surprising that no opposition parties’ governorship candidates, including that of the Labour Party, included the ex-convict allegation in their petitions against Mbah at the tribunal. Why? Was it because the lie and propaganda had been debunked and erased by Malami’s apology letter to Mbah exonerating him of the allegation? This case is a typical example of how desperate political opponents and their social media urchins fabricate fake news against rivals, only to abandon it when they are countered or confronted with the truth.

It could be observed that what the opposition did, especially the Labour Party’s governorship candidate, Barr. Edeoga at tribunal was to concentrate attention and energy on the unfounded allegation of NYSC certificate forgery against Mbah, relying on the NYSC disclaimers, NYSC DG’s unguarded statement on live television and the appearance of the NYSC staff at the tribunal to testify against Mbah, forgetting that NYSC certificate is not a constitutional requirement for one to be governor and that the allegation of forgery must be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

In doing this, neither Edeoga nor his counsels saw or factored in the fact that Mbah was already in court with NYSC over the certificate saga and that Nigerian foremost security agency, Department of State Security (DSS) had waded in, commenced and concluded investigations on the certificate saga between Mbah and the NYSC had their report as evidence.

It is obvious that because of paying too much attention and concentration on phantom NYSC certificate forgery against Mbah, Barr. Edeoga’s counsels couldn’t have enough time to know and inspect the exact BVAS machines they were granted access to establish their allegation of over voting in Nkanu East LGA.

Just like a bolt from the blues and bomb blast, the DSS report, which indicted NYSC and exonerated Mbah of certificate forgery, swept Barr. Edeoga and his counsels off their foot.

Testifying at the tribunal, the Department of State Services (DSS) debunked claims by the National Youths Service Corps, NYSC, to the effect that the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 general election and incumbent governor of the state, Dr. Peter Mbah forged his NYSC discharge certificate.

The Nigeria secret police indicted the NYSC of shoddy and hasty investigation in coming to the conclusion that Mbah’s NYSC discharge certificate was fake, saying that certificates in Mbah’s series were found to have been issued to corps members in Lagos, contrary to NYSC’s claim.

It frowned at the NYSC’s misplacement of Mbah’s original file and opened a temporary one for him, noting that NYSC was also unable to trace to whom or which state or states of the federation 12 of its certificates, A808297 to A808308 were issued.

The security agency said “the failure of the NYSC to maintain a proper record keeping system was the cause of its inability to trace Peter Ndubuisi Mbah’s initial certificate”, adding “It would be wrong for the NYSC to blame Peter Ndubuisi Mbah for its own failure in record keeping”.

The DSS made these known in a Statement on Oath adopted by its representative, Mr. Yahaya Isa Mohammed, at the Enugu State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal as Mbah called two witnesses to open his defence. ”
Giving evidence, the subpoenaed DSS Deputy Director, Operations and Strategic Department, said the security agency commenced investigation into the discharge certificate controversy following a petition to it by Dr. Mbah dated February 8, 2023.

Since the DSS’s damning indictment of NYSC at the tribunal over Mbah’s alleged certificate forgery which had been expectedly questioned and dismissed by Labour Party’s social media hirelings and supporters without any contrary facts or evidences, NYSC has neither uttered a word or issued a statement denying their alleged culpability in the saga. This is even when silence is not golden.

I have seen and read articles by some acclaimed social media lawyers, pseudo analysts, and hatchet writers dismissing and trivialising the DSS report. That has been the stock in trade of the Labour Party’s social media bandits.

Even though I am not a lawyer or a judge, I don’t need to be any to understand elementary laws of the country. Anyone dismissing a security report tendered as evidence in an election case of this nature is doing so at his or her own peril. I am not preempting the tribunal judgment, but there are pertinent facts and questions begging for answers in this matter. It has since been established that the DSS personnel that appeared at the tribunal is a senior officer of the agency. He is not an impostor or impersonator, whose reports can be easily dismissed or waved aside. Nothing constitutionally stops or can stop security agent on invitation to wade into a matter like this, especially when suspicion, distrust, and foul play had been established. One indisputable fact is that DSS can investigate NYSC, its staff, and activities, but NYSC can not investigate DSS. Why this studied silence of NYSC since the DSS report indicted them?
Is the NYSC’ s silence an admission of guilt or a case of let the sleeping dog lie? Is NYSC afraid of responding or reacting to avoid DSS opening more cans of worm about their activities?

For those who have argued and are still arguing that the issuing authority has the final say in a case like this, does it mean that the issuing authority is infallible, perfect and cannot make mistakes or be compromised?

I know that there are established cases where issuing authority has been challenged and found wanting in the discharge of its duties due to lack of due diligence and negligence. If finally established and upheld by the tribunal in their judgment that NYSC lied against Mbah as contained in DSS report, nothing stops the NYSC DG from toeing the path of honour like former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN ) by writing public apology letter to Mbah for the avoidable embarrassment they caused him with the certificate saga while it lasted. This will also help NYSC to possibly settle out of court the N20b suit Mbah filed against them at a court in Abuja over the same issue.

Meanwhile, Mbah’s composure, resilience, and tenacity in the case is highly commendable and worthy of emulation. He has shown the character he is made of. He has doggedly fought to establish his innocence. It is Mbah today. It could be anybody and the issuing authority tomorrow. Whichever and however the judgements of the court on Mbah’s case goes and terminates at the Supreme Court in months to come will deepen democracy and enrich the Nigerian jurisprudence.

Dr. Godfrey Agboeze, writes from Abakpa Nike, Enugu State