Musings On Peter Mbah’s Irreparable Deficiencies

By Emma Ezechi

It so happened that, last week, Governor Peter Mbah’s artless propagandists went to town with a new heap of drivel published on ThisDay Online with the title, “What Mbah Has Going for Him as Enugu Governor”. The gibberish was obviously planted in the media to whitewash an ominous character that has been haunting Enugu State like a ghost for over 100 days now.

Using the fictitious name Lawrence Madu, they attempted to paint Mbah as a savvy financial genius, a trick that falls flat in the face of reality. And the reality is that Peter Mbah is a fraud through and through.

It’s easy to see through the write-up as another bait to coax the judges of the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal to bend justice to their favour based on mendacious claims and duplicitous sentiments.

To make an angel out of the Peter Mbah we know too well, they began by claiming that he was chosen over Hon. Barr. Chijioke Edeoga, the victorious Labour Party governorship candidate, because he built a gigantic oil and gas company out of nothing. They hid the fact that Edeoga’s popularity stemmed from his pedigree as a stainless character with integrity over a long period of time. From 1997 when he was elected chairman of Isi-Uzo LGA of Enugu State to this day after he had served as member House of Reps, Presidential Aide and as commissioner, Edeoga has not been investigated or found guilty of violating public trust.

On the other hand, the Enugu people did not elect Peter Mbah for understandable reasons. They have not forgotten the scandals around his neck and will not accept him. He simply doesn’t have the right character for one seeking public office. Even the vote riggers in PDP know that Mbah did not win the majority votes in the election held on March 18, this year. In fact, but for vote buying and strong-arm tactics applied by the ruling PDP in the state, LP’s Edeoga would have beaten him with more than 100,000 vote difference.

Enugu people are scared of Mbah because of his terrible antecedents of dishonesty in and out of public office. He made himself an easy tool in the looting of Enugu State treasury during the Governor Chimaroke Nnamani administration.

People do not rise from obscurity into stupendous wealth unless there’s a lot of criminality involved. Ndị Enugu and many notable public affairs commentators have asked him to show his tax receipts to prove his balance sheet and evidence of his annual income over the years. That would have settled much of the speculations around the sources of his stupendous wealth. Unfortunately for him, he has so far evaded that crucial responsibility. And other facts pointing to the dubiety around him are there: his detention by the EFCC and subsequent arraignment for fraud at a Federal High Court in Lagos and his indictment by the House of Representatives investigative panel on the fuel subsidy scam.

What can be more worrisome than the massive bank debts of #13 billion which Pinnacle Oil borrowed from banks with repayments structured to begin from June 2023 to 2031, a period of eight years coinciding with his ambition for two terms of office as governor?

Mbah is reputed to have made only four credits in WASC from a mysterious examination centre in Apapa, Lagos, even though he claims to have attended secondary school in Ijebu Owode in Ogun State. How he managed to gain admission to read Law at the University of East London remains a mystery.

The questions surrounding the NYSC certificate he forged and presented under oath remain some of the top two scandals that assailed the 2023 general election in Nigeria. Today, Enugu is seen as a den of forgers in high office. What a tragic turn of events!

It’s an open secret that it’s the link between Pinnacle Oil and Gas and Enugu State government over the years that necessitated his godfathers (Ugwuanyi in cahoots with Ebeano) to buy him constitutional immunity with the governorship seat of the state. With immunity he will not appear in court to refund ego ndi Enugu.

Of course, despite the hide and seek and the occasional cat and mouse quarrels, Enugu people are aware of the criminal symbiosis and intertwined relationship among Peter Mbah, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and Chimaroke Nnamani.

Mbah’s propagandists are pitiable hollow gongs who are adept at noise production. They never reckon with the fact that ndị Enugu are alert, discerning and politically savvy.

With the benefit of the first 100 days in office which ended without Governor Mbah the usurper-in-thief recording a single achievement, even his wicked and crooked supporters have confirmed him and his voluminous copy-and-paste manifesto as hollow rituals, a regrettable accident on Enugu’s march to progress.

Who told them that to win an election petition all he needed was to publish ludicrous claims of a fictitious tsunami performed at the election peppered with lies about his sudden wealth? And they believe that the judges would just say, “You have won, go and sin no more. Don’t forge any certificate again and don’t swear to a false affidavit”.