NYSC Corruption: Why Corps Members Suffering May Continue
Despite the change of the leadership of National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, following allegations of corruption in the system, the NYSC under the new director general still lies prostrate, and in desperate need of remedy. This is in spite of the huge revenue accruing to the scheme operations from its online registration
By Ovie Edomi
When the former director-general, DG, of National Youth Service Corps, NYSC,Brigadier-General Bamidele Johnson Olawumi was removed shortly after this magazine reported the ongoing rot in the system,he noted, in his handover note to his successor that the departmental directors should share in the blame. Though Olawumi left NYSC as a very somber officer but he was richer. For instance, one of the cabal members, a director who had benefited from the previous leadership sold the idea of selling the official house of the DG to him. There are speculations that the former DG eventually bought the house. However when the magazine wrote the new director-general to find out how much was paid into the NYSC account for the purchase of the house mum was the word. But an insider said the new director-general only maintained the spirit of spirit de corps by refusing to talk about the activities of his predecessor.
It is alleged that the operators of the online registration platform played a role in the purchase of the house for the former DG. The same organisation is believed to have sponsored some NYSC directors to the United States, US in order to win their favour, so that the ICT staff in the NYSC will remain redundant and the plan to make the 774 local government ICTcentres highly technologically compliant will not see the light of the day. That way, the online registration contract entered into with SidmachTechnology will continue with no end to the contract.
Though, the current NYSC director-general posted some of the cabal directors to other department, a development that caught some of them pants down, nevertheless, one of the directors who the new DG deployed from human resources to another department alongside other directors are not happy.
Unlike in the past where the scheme raised funds from online registration and state governors, the recession is making NYSC unable to raise funds for corps members