Magnus Eze, Enugu
The squabble between the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Anambra State and the Anglican Diocese on the Niger over the Umunya temporary orientation camp and the alleged confiscation of the scheme’s property by the church is far from being over.
Anambra State NYSC Coordinator, Mr Aremu Kehinde, recently raised the alarm that the church denied them access to move some of their valuable property to the new NYSC permanent camp at Umuawulu, Awka South Local Government Area of the state.
The NYSC had used Progressive Secondary School, Umunya in Oyi Local Government Area, owned by the Anglican Diocese on the Niger as temporary camp for over 25 years, until October, 2019 when it relocated to its permanent camp at Umuawulu/Mbaukwu in Awka South Area.
Kehinde alleged that he wrote to the bishop, Rt. Rev. Dr. Owen Nwokolo, informing him of the plan to move NYSC’s property out of Umunya when it became obvious that NYSC was bound to relocate last month.
The coordinator who lamented that the confiscation of their property by the church had made life difficult for corps members and the NYSC personnel in the new place said that it hampered the scheme from camping the 1,888 Batch ‘C’ Stream One corps members currently undergoing orientation in the state.
“These NYSC property in Umunya include; 1000 units of mattresses, 600 units of double bunk beds, assorted furniture items, 12 number water tanks, Kitchen utensils, large changeover switch.
“Others are property of the three religious bodies; Nigerian Christian Corpers’ Fellowship (NCCF), Nigerian Association of Catholic Corpers (NACC) and Muslim Corpers’ Association of Nigeria (MCAN)”, he said.
The coordinator said that at first when his staff went to start the movement of the property, the supervisor, Rev. Canon Marcel Emeh said that his bishop must give order before the NYSC could move its property.
According to Kehinde, Canon Emeh later told them that the bishop was out of the country, insisting that nothing would be moved out until he returned.
“We have 1,888 corps members currently in camp in Anambra, due to fears of possible challenge, 219 corps members deployed to Anambra are now camping in Enugu State, while 85 others are in Delta State,” the state coordinator claimed.
Kehinde explained that Governor Willie Obiano would have loved the NYSC to move into the permanent orientation camp when everything was ready, but they had to relocate because of the university that was being constructed at Umunya.
His words: “I wrote a letter to the bishop informing him of the development, and letting him know that from October 23 that we would start to move NYSC things to Umuawulu/Mbaukwu.
“But rather than start the movement on October 23, my officials began the move on October 24; but on getting to Umunya, they met a brickwall. The clergy man, Rev. Canon Marcel Emeh in-charge of the place said he will not allow us to move out any of our things that we must wait for his bishop to give instructions. When we insisted because at the time most prospective corps members deployed for the current orientation exercise had started receiving their call-up letters, he then told us that the bishop travelled out of the country and that we must wait for him to return.
“We needed to move out more than 2,000 beds, public address system, cooking utensils, more than 1,000 mattresses kept in our store at Umunya, Man “O” War gadgets and furniture clearly marked NYSC, change over switch, I think the switch particularly entered his eyes because when security men wanted to hand over the switch to us, he said can’t NYSC forgo some property to him. We pleaded with the Canon and he refused; then we surreptitiously, moved out certain essential things out of the place without the Canon knowing. At the end of the day, he deployed more local security men and village people to prevent NYSC officials from moving out their property out of Umunya.
“In any case I told Canon Emeh that the property he was asking me to give him, do not belong to me as a person, but to an institution and I can’t dash out.
“Secondly, some of the structures we erected there like the clinic, office block housing the state coordinator, camp director and other offices are there. We sank two boreholes that are functional; we started a fencing project and some buildings we renovated.”
Despite the current situation, the state coordinator said that the scheme was now more at home to carry out its mandate, noting that it had been a running battle with the church at Umunya over the years.
He said: “All the past state coordinators in Anambra before me had told me that they had it tough with Rev. Canon Marcel Emeh and that reflected in their handover notes, and when I came; I went to him, I pleaded with him that we work as friends and he agreed, later we prayed together, but in spite all these, he (Emeh) exhibited unfriendly attitude at the end and I cannot pretend over my pains at this unfortunate situation.”
He, therefore, appealed to the Bishop on the Niger, to direct that the NYSC be allowed to evacuate its property at the Umunya temporary orientation camp.
The leadership of the religious organisations in the camp all narrated how the situation has posed serious challenge to them in the permanent camp.
President, National Association of Catholic Corpers (NACC), Peter Goma, an executive member of Muslim Corpers Association of Nigeria (MCAN), Abdulrasak Abdulrasheed and President, Nigerian Christian Corpers Fellowship (NCCF), Mr Adoyin Ephraim, all bemoaned their plights.
“The people refused to allow us to carry things. The matter got to a point when hefty-looking hired security told us that if we attempt carrying
anything that the story would be different. Currently, we conduct our religious activities in open air and the situation is adversely affecting our programmes. We require more than N2.5 million to set up our worship centre. For now, we hired a canopy which we now pay N2,000 daily to make sure that the altar is covered during celebration of masses. And we also visit some parishes, our benefactors and levy the corps members to source fund which we are now using to buy plastic chairs, as well as commence the erecting of a temporary structure you are seeing,” Goma said.
Abdulrasheed who noted that the situation had been unpalatable said that they went to Umunya five times, but were not allowed to take their materials, pointing out that they were now forced to source money to either improvise or replace such property.
He said: “We are now conducting our prayers under the sun and in the rain whenever it rains because the small tent we made with used cement bags cannot provide adequate worship centre for us. We are sourcing money to fuel our generator and buy more mats to enable us observe our prayers and ensure those coming after us found a manageable place for worship.”
In fact, NYSC staff adviser on MCAN, Mallam Dauda Kuta, told Sunday Sun that the church had converted their previous place of worship to a poultry house.
According to Kuta, “we tried to remove our zinc and the iron poles, but the Canon refused, we gathered that he immediately converted the place to a poultry house. He told us that a tenant does not plant flower in another man’s house.”
Regardless, Media Director of Diocese on the Niger, Oseloka Offor who spoke on behalf of the bishop accused the NYSC of escalating the issue without approaching the church for discussion.
He noted that the door was still open for the scheme to come for dialogue to resolve the matter amicably.
Offor who said that Bishop Nwokolo just came back from his overseas trip, however, accused the NYSC of having damaged some property of the church at its Umunya temporary camp which needed to be sorted out before they could talk of removing the said property.
“The truth remains that they looted the school, all the equipment, generator and boarder facilities which they met were all looted. They have not done anything about the school which they almost stopped from operation because the school was boarder school before they took it over and now; the school just exists in name.
“There are severe damage done to the school structurally and environmentally which NYSC supposed to have looked into before relocating to the permanent site. We’re supposed to be compensated for putting the school in the present condition or even renovate the school by coming to us to discuss the best way to put the school they used for over 27 years in order before they started accusing us of refusing them to carry their property.
“Are their property up to the damage done to our school and students who were off and on whenever the corps members were on camp? Usually, the students vacated the school whenever they came to make use of the place for many years. Who are we to stop the federal might from moving out their property, do we have army or police? Our bishop was away for some time and he is back and his office is open for discussion with NYSC to settle this matter, because going to media would not do all of us any good, but come to roundtable to resolve it”, Offor stated.