*Insists NYSC is key to national development and integration
*Hopeful he will recover his mandate
By Malachy Uzendu and Chesa Chesa
The governorship candidate of the Labour Party in Enugu State, Hon. Chijioke Edeoga has advised personalities and institutions to strive to preserve the integrity of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and other public institutions, rather than undermine them.
Edeoga, while speaking with The AUTHORITY Editorial Board Thursday in Abuja, while analysing his political trajectory to the March 23rd, 2023 governorship elections in Enugu State, stated that with the avalanche of evidence he already put across to the State’s Governorship Election Petition Court, he is hopeful of recovering his stolen electoral mandate.
He frowned at the shoddy manner in which established institutions carry out their statutory duties of screening people or investiging issues sent to them, stressing that “such shoddy process is gradually eroding the integrity of our public institutions”.
According to the LP candidate, “the facts on ground prove that LP won Enugu state decisively in the just completed National, State Assembly, the Presidential and Governorship elections in the state.
“For instance, out of three senatorial positions in Enugu State, LP has two senators from. Out of eight seat in the House of Reps, LP has seven, while PDP has only one. Out of the 24 positions in the State Assembly, LP won 14, while PDP has only 10 seats”.
He attributed the malfeasence by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) regarding the outcome of the election to manipulation of the results from Nkanu-East, and Udenu LGAs, pointing out that had integrity meant anything to the Commission and the security agencies, such level of impunity would not have occurred.
“After the voting and after a very long delay that was not unnecessary and was not inexplicable in the sense that the results from the farthest LGAs had come in, and Nkanu-East which is one of the closest LGAs to the state headquarters (of INEC) came in last, and when they came in, they declared results of more than 30,000 votes.
“Even the Electoral Officers knew and agreed that something wrong had happened because there were only 15,000 accredited voters in tha LGA. So, how could PDP or INEC have returned 30,000 votes in a place where only 15,000 voters were duly accredited?
“There was a rumpus and the Returning Officer refused to announce that result. Abuja intervened and took matters into their own hands and it was agreed there was a problem, but outside the law and llegally.
“After three days and in the absence of any LP representative, they shed the figures down and then gave the PDP a lead of about 5,000 votes over the Labour Party, and announced PDP as the winner of the election.
“The petition we filed will go down in electoral history as one of the best – very precise, very brief, very well written but still captured the law in its essentialities and I’m confidence i will recover the mandate given to me by the good people of Enugu State,” he said.
Edeoga insisted that “Peter Mbah, having submitted a forged NYSC certificate, did not qualify ab initio to run for that office and should be disqualified. That position agrees with the Constitution. What the case law says is that in order to prove this matter, the issuing authority has to come personally or in writing to accept that it was issued by them.
“Our first canvass is that Peter Mbah was not qualified to run as a candidate having presented a forged NYSC certificate.
“We subpoenaed a Director at INEC who came and agreed that attached to Form EC-9, Peter Mbah actually submitted an NYSC certificate.
“We also subpoenaed the Director of Certification of the NYSC who agreed the document was forged.
“We also subpoenaed a human rights lawyer, who had on the basis of Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, written to NYSC, and NYSC had replied that the certificate was forged.
“The second issue we canvassed was what we said was arithmetical error. We pointed out computational errors. We didn’t know whether they were deliberate or otherwise, but we pointed them out, especially in Udenu LGA where the votes LP got at the polling units were assigned at the point of collation to the PDP.
“We had result sheets certified by INEC and tendered in court, showing that in several polling units in Udenu LGA, LP won at the polling units but at the point of computation upstairs, the victories of LP were assigned to PDP and losses of PDP were assigned to the LP. We asked the court to realign these figures to the proper owners and if this is done, the margin of lead by the PDP will be substantially diminished.
“On our third point, we also pointed out is that they should comply with the Electoral Law which states that in any polling unit where there is over voting, the election should be cancelled.
“We brought evidences from BVAS and necessary documents to show that in Nkanu-East, in Owo, the home community of Peter Mbah and nearby community of Ugbuoka, there was over voting by more than 5,000 votes. We proved these things convincingly”.
He stated that the NYSC has remained a national institution that has endured for good reasons, which we ought to do everything possible, that, that icon of our nation must be protected and preserved from against all these opaque things that are going on”.
He noted that not acting decisively “provide opportunities for attempts to coerce the national institutions to make us begin to come to terms with the fact that somebody who had obviously forged his certificate can get away with that”.
He decried the rising do-or-die politics in the polity, stressing that “it is abhorrent. Do-or-die arises when the impetus and propelling motive is not service. You are being propelled by something that’s outside service. If you really genuinely want to serve your people, or your state or Nigeria, then there will be no do-or-die.
“Do-or-die attitide obtains because those who had done it in the past and got away with it in Nigeria are seldom punished. It is a function of the values and upbringing that one has at heart.
“I have never rigged election in my life, I have never asked anyone to rig for me. I have never played outside the rules because that is my upbringing. So upbringing and values from childhood and peer group associations are important.
“Beyond that, the laws must be upheld. So, if politicians are caught stealing, the police and EFCC should be up and doing but they are not. The fact that you can steal and build houses, even kill and maim, and get away with it, is what encourages do-or-die. If the laws are maximally enforced, it will reduce”
