A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Monday dismissed the allegation of forgery against the Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah, by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), News About Nigeria reports.
The court also levelled a N5 million fine on NYSC for alleging that the certificate Mbah submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission was fake.
The Governor had sued the NYSC and its Director, Corps Certification, Ibrahim Muhammad, over the disclaimer they published where the scheme alleged that the discharge certificate Mbah claimed was issued to him on January 6, 2003, was not from them.
Justice Inyang Ekwo, in his judgement, held that the certificate Governor Mbah presented to INEC was authentic and validly issued by the NYSC.
He also ruled that the Director-General of the NYSC and the corps, who were defendants in the suit, were guilty of misrepresentation of material facts.
Ekwo explained that Mbah, midway into his service, sought the permission of NYSC to attend the Nigeria Law School and was granted the permission by the scheme.
He further stated that Mbah was, however, reinstated into the NYSC in 2003 after the completion of his law school.
The judge also held that NYSC failed to prove to the court that they did not issue the certificate to Mbah, who, according to him, had heavier and more believable evidence to prove his case.
The court further ruled that, with the unchallenged evidence presented by the Enugu State Governor on how he got the NYSC discharge certificate after serving in a law firm in Lagos in 2003 and the inability of the Corps to come up with counter-evidence, it was clear that he completed the one-year mandatory service.
Ekwo, therefore, fined the NYSC N5 million for such an allegation against Mbah.
