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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The management of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has threatened to prosecute at least 54 serving corps members across the country involved in fake mobilisation by their various higher institutions.
Director General, Brigadier General YD Ahmed, made the disclosure on Friday in Abuja while giving update on the over 178 corps members, majorly from University of Calabar, that the scheme has invalidated their certificates.
General Ahmed disclosed that among the number of fake corps members whose certificates have been invalidated, the State Coordinators of the affected 54 fake corps members across across country have been communicated to demobilise them.
He specifically commended the Vice Chancellor of UNICAL, Florence Banku Obi for her patriotism of reporting the scandal to the scheme’s management, ruling out the possibility of sanctioning the academic institution.
“The most important thing is for everybody to know that they can only try to cut corners but can’t go away with it. For purposes of the record, the actual number reported is 178, the certificates we have invalidated are 99, the exception certificates are two, put together they are 101.
“We have four certificates that are not yet produced, and they are put on hold now. The four fake corps members that are supposed to collect these certificates cannot collect them again. We have 19 fake prospective corps members waiting to be mobilised for orientation that have been blocked in our system.
“We have 54 serving corps members in various states. We have communicated to our various State Coordinators to demobilize them. We are likely going to prosecute them because they are supposed to refund the federal government of the various allowances they have collected.
“We are not going to allow them to go free like that. There is no way the scheme will know the authenticity of whether those mobilised actually graduated from various institutions. It is from the names given to us that we mobilise. There is a special portal handled by various institutions which we don’t have control over. We cannot add or reduce. It is purely the control of various institutions. We work on the names given to us,” he explained.
Giving insight on how the lid was opened, General Ahmed said: “At a point, the Vice Chancellor of University of Calabar, came to our national headquarters to report that she has observed that some names mobilised for the scheme that ought not to be there.
“I gave kudos to the VC for showing concerns and patriotism. We sat with her to review the issue, we went into our ITC data and discovered that all the names in the list are there as she reported.
I promised the VC and fulfilled my promise that all the names in the list should be invalidated
“I must admit that this trend did not start under my administration. Before I assumed the position of DG, there was a time we discovered that a bread seller was mobilised as a corps member. We have always had collaboration with the committee of Vice Chancellors. But the truth is the trend lays on the integrity of the institutions concerned.
“We had challenged her to investigate the institution’s data entry officers. Good enough that the data officers have been suspended and published in the media. He ruled out the possibility of sanctioning the institutions involved in the mobilising the fake corps members, stressing: “there is limitations to how long or the extent of the sanctioning the institutions.
“Sometimes you sanction the institution for the individual’s for negligence but ended up sanctioning an innocent person. If we sanction the institution what about the innocent graduates that did not do anything. We will end up making them to suffer for the culprits.
“Going forward, we are going to sit down with the stakeholders to appraise this issue wholistically and map the best punitive measures to take against it and check future occurrence of such incidents. If serious measures are taken against them, it will serve as deterrent to others,” he said.
