A civil society organisation, Enugu Good Governance Group, E-3G, has applauded the Department of State Services (DSS), for clearing the air on the discharge certificate controversy between the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu state.
The group urged Mbah to pursue his N20 billion lawsuit against the NYSC for alleged conspiracy, deceit, and misrepresentation of facts, even as it also demanded an unreserved public apology by the NYSC to the people of Enugu state for willful defamation of the state’s number one citizen.
According to E-3G, the agency’s “ineptitude, shoddy investigation, cover-up, and compromise, by implication impinged on the reputation of the whole state.”
In a statement by its national coordinator, Comrade Odinaka Okechukwu, the group described the NYSC as a metaphor for rots in the nation’s public institutions, wondering how many ordinary Nigerians might have had their prospects truncated by the agency’s alleged negligence, poor record keeping, and lack of accountability.
Recall that DSS investigation into the certificate saga as rendered in the statement on oath and evidence adduced by its subpoenaed witness, Mr. Yahaya Isa Mohammed, before the Enugu state Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, showed Mbah’s initial file with the NYSC got missing at some point promoting the agency to start using a temporary file for him.
The DSS averred that in NYSC’s response to Mbah’s application for deferment of his service to enable him return to the Nigerian Law School for his Bar Final programme, the file number was LA/10/1532, while in their response to his request, the file number was LA/01/1532/T, with ‘T’ standing for temporary file.
Mohammed stated: “The difference in Mbah’s certificate number compared to others that were mobilised at the same time, is due to the inability of NYSC to trace the initial file where the first certificate, A678 was.”
