By Simon Edeh,
As Ndi Enugu count down to 34 days within which the Enugu Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal shall deliver judgement on Barr. Chijioke Edeoga’s Petition challenging the declaration and return of Peter Mbah of PDP as winner of the March 18 governorship election in Enugu state, law, facts and evidence support Peter Mbah’s imminent disqualification, sack and or removal by the tribunal as the petitioners; Barr. Chijioke Edeoga and Labour Party have proved beyond reasonable doubt that Mbah was not qualified to contest election to the office of the governor of Enugu State, having presented forged NYSC certificate to INEC in contravention of section 182(1)(j) of the CFRN 1999 as amended.
As required by law and precedents, NYSC has officially disclaimed Peter Mbah’s NYSC certificate, describing it as fake and forged, the Director Corps Certification further testified and tendered the disclaimer before the Enugu Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in support of Edeoga’s petition.
Aside not being qualified as already established in the ground one Edeoga’s petition, Mbah did not score the majority of valid votes as required by the law for him to be declared winner of governorship election. INEC certified copies of Form EC8A, report from BVAS and voters register and testimonies of witnesses established that there was over voting in OWO and UGBAWKA registration areas, in addition to computation errors and vote swapping in Udenu local government area.
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Peter Mbah’s chief witness, Dr. FSA Uzor confirmed to the tribunal that there was over voting in OWO and UGBAWKA registration areas, thereby inviting the court to cancel the affected polling units as stipulated by the Electoral Act, 2022 as amended.
After the close of trial and adoption of written addresses by parties, it became glaringly clear to the public that Peter Mbah, the PDP and INEC have no meaningful defense to outweigh the mountains of evidence presented to the tribunal by the Petitioners apart from semantics rigmarole and deliberate disinformation and misrepresentation of facts by paid media agents.
Litanies of judicial precedents and legal authorities support Peter Mbah’s imminent disqualification, sack and or removal by the tribunal for forgery and electoral malpractice, chief among them were that of Saleh V Abah (2018), PDP &Ors V Degi-eremeinyo &Ors (2020), where the Supreme Court restated that the era of political parties presenting candidates holding public offices at Local, State and National levels with forged certificates which still persists in the polity needs to be addressed urgently by relevant law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders (and we add-including Courts) in this nascent democracy (Emphasis ours).”
This Court must take the lead, in righting the wrongs in our society, if and when the opportunity presents itself as in this appeal. Allowing criminality and certificate forgery to continue to percolate into the streams, waters and oceans of our national polity would only mean our waters are and will remain dangerously contaminated. The purification efforts must start now, and be sustained as we seek, as a nation, to now ‘change’ from our old culture of reckless impunity.
The Nigerian Constitution is supreme. It desires that no one who had ever presented forged certificate to INEC should contest election into Nigeria’s National Assembly or other elective office. This is clear and sacrosanct. More compelling as a judicial.
Besides this, the Supreme Court decision on Adeleke V Oyetola (2023) supports Peter Mbah’s imminent removal from office as governor and the declaration of Barr. Chijioke Edeoga as the validly elected governor of Enugu State after discounting the invalid votes.
In the light of this, Ndi ENUGU expect nothing less than justice as we await tribunal judgement within 34 days.
