Once again, I reiterate a position I have taken earlier regarding the ambition of Peter Ndubuisi Mbah to become the Governor of Enugu State come May 29, 2023, and that is for Peter Mbah to resist all the pressure that is obviously being mounted on him by the retinue of political scavengers and desperate power-mongers loitering around him and withdraw from this race.

It is about honour like I have said before, and now, more than ever before, I am hoping my voice rises above the din of the choking cacophony of political carpetbaggers and convince Mbah, a self-proclaimed “shrewd businessman” to throw in the towel.

Besides the mountains of issues against his journey to Enugu Government House is the moral can of worms that has been rupturing from just about everywhere. The sad this is that Mbah has inadvertently been tearing this can and unleashing the unsightly grubs even while he naively believes he is sealing the holes and blocking the leakages.

When the news surfaced that the PDP governorship candidate may have skipped his compulsory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme, the entire Enugu was soaked wet in minutes with the news, and what was on every discussant’s lip was how Mbah should hasten his departure from the race, given what the Law says about the consequences of failing to perform this national duty.

I was among those who screamed and for me, it was more about saving the state the resources and pains of a protracted court case and lingering moral burden. I advised Mbah to withdraw.

But rather than give consideration to this noble exit pathway, Mbah arrived in Enugu on Saturday, February  11, 2023, and seized the airwaves in an effort to make light of what is obviously his albatross.

Seven or so radio stations were hooked to a network programme anchored from the studios of Solid FM station in the Coal City and for two hours, Peter Mbah spoke about everything he plans to do for the people of Enugu State. It was a recitation of his manifesto, but then, no matter how cleverly the anchors tried to evade it, the question of his NYSC discharge certificate just has to be answered, so also are those concerning his famous multibillion naira business, Pinnacle Oil and gas Ltd

Of Factchecks and truth-checks

During the programme, Mbah was asked whether he performed his compulsory NYSC programme, and as expected, he said he did. He went on to explain that he was mobilised for the one-year programme, did his orientation and was also deployed to a Place of Primary Assignment (PPA).

However, according to him, he was in the 8^th month of his NYSC programme when the announcement came that his Bar One Law School programme was going to commence, a development that made him defer his national service. However, on completion of his 12-month Law programme, he resumed his NYSC, was duly discharged and obtained his certificate.

TRUTH-CHECK: Enugu people are not disputing whether Peter Mbah attended his NYSC orientation programme or not. The photographs that have been released by his supporters lend to this.

FACT CHECK: There are holes in Peter Mbah’s story and I will point out as many as I have identified. First is as it related to the possibility of him suspending his NYSC after eight months only to resume one year later.

1. The NYSC programme is a full-year project, and there is nowhere in its rules and regulations where it is said that candidates can suspend, or defer their programme and resume at a later date
2. The Bar programme for foreign students is actually not a one-year programme. People who studied Law abroad spend 2 years in Law School and they are not allowed to finish their Bar One programme, attend the NYSC programme and return for the Bar Two programmes.
3. The NYSC certificate said to have been submitted by Mbah to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as part of his governorship nomination claims, was signed on the 6^th of January, 2003. If Peter Mbah had commenced his service year on the 7^th of January 2002, it, therefore, means that assuming he deferred it, as he had claimed on the radio, it should then mean that he embarked on his Bar One programme between August and September, 2002. Arithmetically, this means that by January 6, 2003, when he had collected his NYSC discharge certificate, he would still have been at the Nigerian Law School battling his Bar One programme, which, if he does well in his exams, should have ended between July and August 2003. Was Peter Mbah such a special Nigerian that his NYSC discharge certificate was given to him while he was still at Law School? I do not believe so.

The other issue worth verifying is the little matter of how his multibillion naira oil and gas company known as Pinnacle Oil and Gas Ltd, managed to get to the “pinnacle” of the Nigerian oil industry from such questionable obscurity.

TRUTH-CHECK: We know for certain that Peter Mbah is the Managing Director of Pinnacle Oil and Gas Ltd. We also know, from the company’s website that Pinnacle is active across the entire downstream value chain, with emphasis on petroleum trading, marketing, distribution and retail segments of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Sector. According to the website also, “the company was founded in 2004 with Head Quarters in Lagos, one of Africa’s largest business hubs.”

FACT CHECKS. This is where everything gets quite complicated.

1. By 2004, while Mbah’s oil and gas company was registered, the man was supposed to be either at the Nigerian Law School for his Bar 2 programmes or had resumed his “deferred” NYSC programme.
2. Peter Mbah himself said that his company commenced business in 2004. In fact, Peter Mbah claimed on the radio that he founded Pinnacle Oil in a studio apartment in Lagos with just his Secretary and his dispatch rider. We will never know what role a dispatch rider would have been playing in a company in the oil and gas business, but, the fact is that in 2004, if Peter Mbah had not been trying to complete his Bar exams, then he should have been trying complete his NYSC programme, which as we can recall, he had claimed he had to defer. He should not have been anywhere, either in a single room or atop the Burj Khalifa running his own business, because the NYSC forbids that.
3. While Peter Mbah was holing up in that one-room apartment making billions from oil deals, it also happened that his doppelganger was at that same time at the Government House Enugu, performing daily, often, round-the-clock functions as the Chief of Staff to the then Governor of the State, Dr Chimaroke Nnamani. There was no way it would be this same Peter Mbah. It had to be his body double. How can anyone convince me that the same person is performing his NYSC programme, running his NBA programme, managing a multibillion-naira oil and gas company and functioning as the Chief of Staff to a Governor, all during the same period?

These are facts, as made out from the statements of Peter Mbah himself. There are “no tricks in plain and simple faith,” according to William Shakespeare, and as far as this matter is concerned, the PDP candidate has overburdened himself morally and should therefore save the people of Enugu State from the continued embarrassment of having someone like him with a high trust-deficiency quotient as an option for election.

The facts have spoken.