THE
House of Representatives, yesterday, directed the National Youth Service Corps,
NYSC, to cancel all postings of corps members to states in the North East which
are faced with security challenges.
This
was sequel to the controversy that emanated from the posting of Batch B corps
members, last Monday which resulted in a protest by the corpers at the
headquarters of the NYSC in Abuja. The affected corps members insisted that the
authorities should redeploy them to safer areas in the country.
In
its resolution on a motion moved by a member, Mr Peter Edeh, under
matters of urgent public importance, the House also directed the NYSC to
maintain the same such stance until the security threats in the affected states
had been satisfactorily addressed.
The
House, however, asked corps members who opted to serve in the troubled states,
to be allowed to do so.
Edeh,
while moving the motion, had expressed concerns that it was on record that
several corps members had lost their lives in these crisis-prone states in the
past, adding that it would be unreasonable, therefore, to post members to the
troubled states.
He
further explained that the call for the cancellation of all corps members’
postings to the troubled states was further necessitated by the fact that corps
members were ill-equipped and ill-trained to defend themselves in the face of
unprovoked attack.
His
contributions were supported by Minority Leader of the House, Femi Gabjabiamila,
who argued that the notion that corps members must serve outside their states of
origin was wrong, as according to him, framers of the NYSC Act did not envisage
such threats to lives of innocent Nigerian youths.
He
said where there was obvious security threat, there was nothing wrong to
temporarily leave out crisis-prone areas in the posting of corps members.
However,
Ahmed Kaita and Kyari Gujbawu who opposed the motion argued that it was not in
tandem with the philosophy of the NYSC scheme.
According
to Kaita, the action would defeat the purpose of the scheme but Gujbawu
cautioned that if complied with, it would set a dangerous precedence, adding
that the security agencies should rather be urged to step-up their operations to
guarantee the security of the corps members when posted. When the question was
put to vote by Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha who presided over the session,
members unanimously voted in favour of the motion.
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