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 A0808297 presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate in the 2003 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.

“This is likely to soften the mind of the authentic winner of the election when he assumes office”, according to the senior religious leaders in a statement in Enugu on Tuesday entitled "Peter Mbah: Just Go Now In Your Own Interest" and signed by the NEBN in the Southeast, Bishop Samuel Ani, and the acting secretary, Bishop Emmanuel Ani.

The bishops pledged towards getting a soft landing for Mbah if “he resigns as soon as possible, rather than attempting to go the whole judicial hog which will infuriate both the authentic governor and the Enugu people to demand his trial for arrest and trial 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, all the more so a high one like the office of the governor of a state”.

The bishops stated that all Enugu people were flabbergasted to hear the NYSC Director of Certification, Alhaji Ibrahim Muhammed, tell the tribunal that their “purported governor” visited the NYSC Director General, Brigadier General Yashau Dogara Ahmed, and pleaded with him to claim that “the certificate 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 fake.

“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”.

Given that the governor has what they described as an incurably defective case, the bishops requested Mbah to resign forthwith “and save precious time and resources of the Enugu people on unproductive legal proceedings.

“Such an action can mitigate the punitive action the true winner of the March 18 gubernatorial vote can take against him. Otherwise, Chief Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party may be compelled, on taking office, to charge him to court with certificate forgery and ensure he goes to jail”.

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 Governor 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 educational certificate forgery.

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