Certificate forgery: Court dismisses NYSC’s objection to Gov Mbah’s suit

The Federal High Court, Abuja, on Friday struck out the preliminary objection filed by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) on the Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah’s suit on the misrepresentation of facts.

The governor in May sued the NYSC and its director of documentation, Ibrahim Mohammed, for what he described as conspiracy, deceit, and misrepresentation of facts and demanded N20 billion in competition.

Mbah insisted that he was issued the certificate of National Service No. A.808297 dated January 6, 2003 at the end of the one-year national service.

The Service had in a letter written by Mohammed in February in response to allegation of certificate forgery against Mbah distanced itself from the discharge certificate in his possession.

During the last proceeding, the NYSC insisted that the governor contravened the NYSC Act in the institution of the suit.

READ ALSO: DSS clears Mbah of NYSC certificate forgery as governor opens defence in LP’s petition

But in his counter affidavit, Mbah said that Section 20 of the NYSC Act did not apply to him.

The Department of State Security (DSS) on July 19 cleared Mbah on the allegation of certificate.

In a statement to the Enugu State governorship election petition tribunal, the DSS said it discovered that certificates in a series that included Mbah’s were issued to corps members in Lagos contrary to the NYSC’s claim.

In his ruling on Friday, Justice Inyang Ekwo held that the provisions of Section 20 of the NYSC Act do not relate to the governor as he was not a corps member currently on national service or the agency’s employee.

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