The National Youth Service Corps Scheme, NYSC, has explained how an undercover reporter, who had earlier been mobilised for the compulsory one-year programme in 2019 was mobilised for the same programme in 2023.
Speaking on a Channels Television programme on Thursday, the Director of Public Affairs, NYSC, Mr Eddy Megwa, said the reporter changed his email address and phone number to be drafted again into the scheme.
“It is not that we don’t have checks and balances in place to detect possible breaches of the system. When the undercover reporter first put in his data, the system rejected him because he had served in the scheme before. He later changed his email address and his phone number which made the system to accept him. And he was initially posted to Osun State.
“He did that because he was out for a particular purpose. We are looking at the situation and ensure that it does not happen again. We don’t have a database of graduates to serve in the scheme. We only rely on the lists sent to us by the Senates of the various universities, stating the number of graduates to expect from them,” he said.
Though Megwa said the use of the National Identification Number, NIN, was incorporated into the scheme three years ago, he was unable to explain why the differences in the reporter’s biodata in NIN and what the reporter put in for his second mobilisation were not enough to raise a flag for the scheme to detect him.
Asked what step the scheme takes to ascertain whether people with foreign certificates are qualified to take part in the scheme, Megwa said, ” It is not our duty to assess their certificates, but we have resorted to inviting foreign students and giving them test to know their abilities.
” In the course of doing that, we have made startling discoveries. Ask some of them to write a simple essay, you will be surprised at what you get. I have some of such materials that I can show you. NYSC is an elite scheme, not for illiterates and the means of communication is English Language.
In 2006, the then DG of NYSC, Brig.- Gen. Yusuf Momoh, went to an orientation camp and asked a supposed corps member the title of his final project, the answer he gave was incredulous and further investigation revealed that his name was smuggled into the list of graduates from a particular university.”
Megwa added that the scheme was collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Education, Foreign Affairs Ministry and other agencies to track people going for foreign studies and when they come back with their certificates.
