The Association of Greater Nkanu Professionals (AGNP) has decried the extent that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in the March 18 governorship in Enugu State, Peter Mbah, has gone to actualise his life ambition, calling it unprecedented political desperation in the state’s history.
“Never have Enugu people seen such desperation since the state was created on August 27, 1991”, the organisation declared this morning in a statement in Enugu signed by its president, Maxwell Obum Nnamani, and its publicity secretary, Chijioke Ogbodo.
“Like all Nigerians, we were stunned that our son, Peter Mbah, could go to the extent of obtaining an ex parte order seeking to stop the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) national secretariat from releasing any document in respect of the integrity of the NYSC discharge certificate which Mbah claims that the NYSC issued to him in January 2002”.
The NYSC Director of Certification, Alhaji Ibrahim A. Muhammadu, had on February 1, 2023, written a letter to a law firm in Abuja disclaiming NYSC Discharge Certificate 808297 which Mbah submitted to INEC as his.
There are serious consequences for forgeries by political office holders in Nigeria, as exemplified by the Supreme Court’s declaration of David Lyon of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as unfit for public office on the eve of his swearing-in on February 14, 2020, as the Bayelsa State governor because his deputy, Biobarakuma Degi-Eremionye, submitted false information about himself to the electoral body.
The Nkanu professionals said that they are worried by the action of Mbah whom the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) controversially declared the winner of the gubernatorial election in March.
“This is because of the bad name Mbah’s desperation has brought to the whole Nkanuland which constitutes the Enugu East senatorial zone, and not just himself or his immediate family”, they stated.
The professionals wondered why Mbah should go to the Federal High Court in Abuja to bar the NYSC from taking a stand on the authenticity of the NYSC discharge certificate which he voluntarily submitted to INEC.
Because of Mbah’s ambition, continued the AGNP, “Our beautiful homeland has been in the news of late for the wrong reasons, including how Dr Chimaroke Nnamani, a serving senator and a former two-term Enugu State governor, has been revealing to the whole nation how Mbah has personally been deeply involved in election rigging in Nkanu West and Nkanu East local government areas.
“The whole country witnessed how the INEC national leadership slashed the number of votes allocated to Mbah in Nkanu East LGA from over 31,000 to 16,000 in March, after four days of doing all manner of things”.
Nkanu professionals recalled how the PDP candidate went to the Ugwu Di Nso Pilgrimage Centre at Eke in Udi LGA on Sunday, March 5, when the Catholic Youth Organisation of Nigeria (CYON) was holding its annual conference to canvass for votes only to be chased out in broad daylight by hungry and thirsty youth who not only rejected but also destroyed the drinks and food he brought to them, as they were singing Labour Party solidarity songs.
Still, Mbah “went to Our Lady of Petertual Help Parish in New Haven, Enugu, the same day to canvass for votes with the assistance of Reverend Father Christopher Okechukwu, and was booed out of the church.
“Further disgrace was brought to Nkanu sons and daughters the same day when”, noted the professionals, “Mbah set out for the Assumption Parish at Nkwo, Nike, and congregants chased him out of the church together with the parish priest, Rev Fr Celestine Nwogbu, who attempted to campaign for him”.
The AGNP observed that the Enugu State people voted in a well-established pattern during the 2023 general elections.
It explained: “They voted the same party in the National Assembly election, making Labour win seven out of the eight House of Representatives seats, and the same party won two of the three senatorial seats.
“Labour won the majority of the House of Assembly seats by clinching 14 seats and the PDP got 10 seats.
“ There must be a limit to desperation, even if it is by our son”.
