The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Enugu State, Peter Mbah, has explained the controversy surrounding his National Youth Service Corps discharge certificate.
Mbah, who spoke while featuring in a radio programme at Solid FM on Saturday, monitored by our correspondent, said he served and was honourably discharged and a certificate issued to him.
Mbah was reacting to a report that claimed that he slumped at the NYSC headquarters in Abuja after he was told that his discharge certificate, presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission was fake.
The NYSC was said to have confirmed to a pressure group, Enugu Monitor, through a Freedom of Information Act request that Mbah’s NYSC discharge certificate forwarded to INEC was fake. The group, following the NYSC’s reply, sought and obtained a judgement from the FCT Magistrate Court, which now ordered the Inspector General of Police to investigate the alleged fake certificate.
But reacting to the allegations, Mbah, on the radio programme, Freedom Square, said, “I did my NYSC. I served and was honourably discharged. I have my discharge certificate. My place of primary assignment was Udeh & Co. I think the confusion was because I had a break.
“As an overseas graduate, when we were done with our Bar Part I, the next thing was for us to do Bar Part II, but we were just completing Bar Part 1 when the Bar final students started.
“So, we were encouraged by the then Deputy Director-General of Nigerian Law School, Prof. Kole Abayomi, who was the DDG of Lagos Campus where I did my Bar Part I, to go and do our youths service. So, we went to start our youths service. Eight months into the service, we were told to come back to do our Bar Final.
“We started the Bar Final and the honourable thing for me to do was to basically write to the NYSC to say, ‘Please, I am going to do my Bar Final and I want to break my service year”. The letter is still documented.
So, I went and completed my Bar Final and went back and completed the remaining months of my service.”
He added, “I still have the letter of the NYSC re-mobilising me to go and finish from where I stopped. So, when I eventually completed it, the certificate I was given had the same date as my original set.
“Therefore, if you don’t have this background, you will be wondering, “You should be in Law School this period, why should you have an NYSC certificate?” But just as I said, the documents are all there and can speak for themselves.
“So, I did my youths service as an honourable person and all these processes were documented and my remaining months were completed and my certificate issued to me by the NYSC,” he insisted.
