Halleluyah! The House of Representatives on Tuesday ordered the
National Youth Service Corps to stop posting graduates who have been
mobilised for the compulsory national service to volatile states in
Northern Nigeria.
The
lawmakers gave this directive following protests by corps members
posted to such states that their lives would be in danger due to the
Boko Haram crisis.
The House, however, said that those corps members who wish to serve
in such states should be allowed to do so, including their indigenes.
My previous report:
Hehehehe# The new set of Corps members posted to
Yobe, Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Bornu and Bauchi states, have asked the
National Youth Service Corps to redeploy them from the states (Nobody wants to die, lol#). They protested the development at the headquarters of the NYSC in Maitama, Abuja.
The protesting youths barricaded the entrance of the secretariat and
barred visitors from entering the premises. Security personnel deployed
to the scene had a hard time calming the youths.
Also, dailytimes newspaper is reporting that an NYSC staff has being held hostage by the protesters. (Serious wahala)
Majority of the corps members and their families, who expressed their worries on various social network sites including Facebook and Twitter,
laid emphasis on the fact that “deploying them to trouble states where
there is currently curfew, threats of reprisals and censeless bombings
is wrong”. Some of the comments
on the social network sites read, “We need to arise and stop the
government from sentencing us and our loved ones to death. Is our
government/NYSC this heartless or simply inhumane? We seek our immediate
redeployment, we want to live in places where we can work with peace of
mind.’’
Punch
newspaper reports that NYSC is already collaborating with the affected
states on how to ensure security for the corps members posted to their
state. Meanwhile, the Borno State Commissioner for
Information, Mr. Inuwa Bwala, in Abuja on Sunday, said, “While it is
true that we have security challenges, it is a fact that these
challenges are not exclusive to Borno State. “We
don’t have on record any attack on visitors neither do we have any
record of attacks on the NYSC camp or corps members posted to and
currently serving in Borno State.”