Apprehension as NYSC Batch B Corps Members Report to Orientation Camps in Northern States

There is some apprehension across the country as the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, opens its camps nationwide today to Batch B corps members.

This is mostly being experienced by prospective youth corps members who have been posted to states in the northern part of the country. Following the incessant bomb blasts, gun battle and unrest in some northern states, graduates who have been posted to such states have either shunned their call-up letters or are going to resume at the camp, fearing for their lives.

The NYSC Director- General, Brig-Gen Nnamdi Okore-Affa has said, “Nigeria has 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT. By our mandate, we must post corps members to all states.

“However, because some areas have been described as volatile, what we will do is to reduce the number of corps member sent to such states. They will be posted to areas where their security will be guaranteed.

“The truth is that each state deserves corps members. We will not deliberately send corps members to violence-prone areas, but we will send to at least state capitals.”

However, states which have been under attack by the radical Islamic sect, Boko Haram, still have their camps resuming today. Graudates posted to Yobe, Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Bornu and Bauchi states have asked the NYSC to redeploy them to other states of the country.

From a legal stand point, although the decree establishing the scheme does not allow corps members to reject posting, a former Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Samuel Omotunde Ilori, says that they have the right under the 1999 constitution to reject posting to places where their lives could be wasted.

“They have the right to life and dignity of the human person first and the right not to be killed. These rights are enshrined in Chapter 2 of the 1999 constitution. Those rights are higher than the 1973 Act of the NYSC or the Decree 1993 of the NYSC.

“Self-preservation is the first law of nature. Dead men don’t argue. All those young men who lost their lives last April are gone forever.

“If there is any corps member that is posted to a place where he feels his life is not secured and he rejects it on such grounds, I will offer my service pro bono to defend such person in court.

“I will show in court that they have the rights to life and not to be killed and that the right is higher and overrides the statutory provision that they should be taken to places other than places of origin,” he said.

“A lot of corps members perished in one state in the North when they were deployed for election duty and nothing happened.

“If I have a child who is to do youth corps service today, and you send him to Maiduguri, for instance, I will sue. I will ask the court to make an order that you have no right to imperil the life of my child. The full duty of the law is to protect life and property,” he said.

What do you think about the continuous posting of graduates to such volatile states? If you were posted to any of such northern states for your NYSC, would you resume at the camp?

News Source: Daily Times