Scrap NYSC Scheme - Ogun Commissioner...As 150 NYSC Indigenes Return

Amidst tears of joy by scores of members of the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) who returned to Ogun, their home state from Bauchi yesterday, the state Commissioner for Environment, Dr. Olukoya Adeleke-Adedoyin, has canvassed scrapping of the scheme, urging the Federal Government to have a re-think of the programme.

The commissioner spoke shortly after 150 members of the NYSC serving in Bauchi arrived Abeokuta, the state capital.

Adedoyin who lamented the situation the members found themselves as a result of the violence in the Northern part of the country, said: “I have seen the situation and I must tell you that this will be my third time of going to the North to rescue my people. If I have my way, I will say honestly, there must be a re-think on the NYSC programme.”

“Those who have escaped this terrible situation, we must make it possible for them not to go back there. They don’t want to go back, but we must address the situation.

He continues: “I felt bad that this type of situation occurred. This is my third time of evacuating our own people from the North, I don’t want to experience this again. The government must have a rethink about this NYSC scheme.

He laments further: ‘’People who come from the North that are serving here, we don’t harm or kill them, but a small thing over there, they get charged and kill our people. We can’t continue like this.

“That is not one Nigeria and I must tell you that I am tired of going to the North to evacuate, that’s not my job. The Federal Government must have a rethink about the NYSC programme. To my mind it can’t work.”
Some of the returnee corps members who recounted their ordeals as well as attacks on them and some of their colleagues who met their untimely death appealed to the state government to ensure that they did not return to the troubled spot, describing residents of the area as barbaric.

‘We will not return to Bauchi state under any guise for the continuation of the exercise. We want the government to give us this assurance. Some of our colleagues were slaughtered and burnt to death right in front of our eyes , while scores lost their credentials and valuables.,’ said one of the Corpers who looked distraught.

In another account, one of the corps members told newsmen that seven of their colleagues were burnt inside police station. It was some of the military personnel under whom we took refuge that told us to ensure that we should not allow the gubernatorial election to meet us here.’ - by Moshood Adebayo, Abeokuta

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