The Department of State Service on Wednesday, berated the National Youth Service Corps over the allegation against Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State of certificate forgery.
The Service however cleared the governor of the allegation, accusing NYSC of engaging in a “shoddy and hasty conclusion”.
There had been controversy over the NYSC certificate belonging to Mbah with claims that the certificate was fake.
Mbah, who is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party won the 18 March governorship election in the state, but, was accused of possessing a fake NYSC certificate.
The Director-General of NYSC, Yisha’u Ahmed, has insisted that the agency did not issue the certificate to Mr Mbah.
The NYSC later tendered the alleged forged discharge certificate as well as the original discharge certificate, which it said Mbah ought to have collected.
The Labour Party has however, dragged the governor to tribunal over the claim.
During Wednesday’s session at the tribunal, the Deputy Director, Operations and Strategic Department of the SSS, Isa Mohammed, said an investigation has been conducted into the matter and found the allegation of certificate forgery against the governor to be false.
Mohammed, tendered a report of the investigation to the tribunal.
He explained that he attended the hearing because the SSS was subpoenaed by the tribunal to testify in the case.
According to him, the NYSC had misplaced Mbah’s original file and opened a temporary one for him, after he had returned from law school to complete his NYSC programme.
He added that the service carried out the investigation into the matter in response to a petition filed to the secret police by Mr Mbah which was dated 8 February 2023.
Mohammed declared that the controversy over Mbah’s NYSC certificate arose because the NYSC had “issues” with maintaining a proper record-keeping system.
He added that the secret police invited both Mbah and officials of the NYSC during the investigation.
Mohammed said their finding showed that “Mbah served for six months” before applying to proceed on his law school programme, which was approved.
He said the finding also showed that Mbah later completed the NYSC programme, but that a temporary file was used for reference for communications involving him, the law school authorities as well as the NYSC management.
“That means his initial file could not be traced. NYSC provided the six-series certificate which was signed and collected by corps members and the eight series.
“We discovered that the numbers are in series. But NYSC could not account for 12 certificates among which includes Mbah’s certificate,” he said.
Meanwhile, during a cross examination, the lead counsel to the LP, Adegoke Awomolo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, faulted the report presented by the SSS official for not being on the letterhead and not stamped by the DSS.
But, Mohammed replied that his signature guaranteed the authenticity of the report.
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