A coalition of Civil Societies, Workers and Human Rights Defenders and Mass Movement for True Democracy, Integral Development and Good Governance has condemned in strong terms, the contemplation of mobilising members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) for war in the face of the rising call for secession by the Director General of the Service, Brigadier General Shuaibu Ibrahim.
The group which faulted the idea of the appointment of an Army officer to head the youth service corps and the call for the scrapping of the scheme, demanded the immediate resignation or removal of Gen. Ibrahim by the presidency if he fails to resign.
Gen. Ibrahim while stating reasons the NYSC should not be scrapped during an interview on Channels TV on Wednesday, June 2, 2021, said the corp members are on the reserve and part of national defence policy that can be mobilised when there is a serious war especially “in the face of the rising call for secession”.
The coalition while reviewing the implications and consequences of the statement credited to Gen. Ibrahim, in Enugu last Saturday, identified the statements “as very provocative and inciting in nature, capable of igniting war in the country and bring fear, discouragement and apathy in the minds of potential corp members.”
The organizations, in a statement jointly signed by the Convener and leader of the mass movement, Comrade Osmond Ugwu, Deputy leader, Comrade Dr Jerry Chukwu Okolo, Secretary, Comrade Zulu Ofoelue and others, added that “from the objectives of the National Youth Service Corp scheme, there is no where in the Act setting up the agency where use for war or during war time is mentioned or contemplated.”
Part of the statement read: “For the Director General to come up with this statement and linking it to the present crisis in the country bothering on national question is very suspicious of ulterior motive deferent from very noble agenda of the founders of the Corp and is capable of triggering off more agitation for independence of various ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.
“We see this statement as a means of inputting into the Corp what is not part of its objectives nor being contemplated for it by the law as aimed at mischief and destruction of the country.
“While we are vehemently opposed to any move or attempt of scrapping out NYSC, we condemned in very strong terms, the plan of educating and training of Youth Corp Members for war or bringing in elements of ethic hatrednes or biases into the hitherto neutral and nationalistic agency aimed at national integration.
“Also we condemned strongly the idea of an officer of Nigerian Army privileged to head a noble agency of national unity to see the demands of people from various nationalities for good governance, complete adherence to true democracy and need for real development where the fundamental rights of the people, their security and welfare, honesty, justice, and equity should form the threshold of our national policies and implementations, concern and actions of the leaders.
“In view of the foregoing, we called on Director-General of National Youth Service Corp, Brigadier General Ibrahim to resign immediately on his own volition or be removed formally by Presidency where he refuses to resign voluntarily.
“We further called on members of the National Assembly of Nigeria not to pass any law scrapping out NYSC but pass resolution condemning the statements of the DG and demand for his immediately removal to avoid his misuse of the Corp Members for predestined ulterior motives of certain groups in the country
“Instead of scrapping out the Corp, we urge the National Assembly to come up with laws that will reposition the Corp into an agency of entrepreneurial training and job creation. In this sense we propose that the camp orientation should be for six months during which period young graduates will be subjected to serious training on various entrepreneurial skills and interests while the remaining six months will be for services as it were in the various public and private sectors. At the end of the service year, each corp member should write a proposal on areas of interest and experience and be given a minimum of two hundred thousand Naira and maximum of one million depending on the projects and requirements through the National Directorate of Employment strictly on the national spread as provided in National character principles.
“What the youths need now is job training and provision and not war and ethnic hatredness and bias.
“What the country needs is assuaging and healing for peace and not sentiment and war. What we need is truth, justice, true love, transparency and accountability, openness and engagement, dialigue, protection and security and not war, hipocricy, wickedness, hatrednes and malice if we must remain as one Nigeria which everybody desire. NYSC can help to achieve that but not with a person with the kind of disposition and mind of Brigadier General Ibrahim.”
