NYSC Bans Benue State University Graduates From National Service

The 2018 Batch C Prospective Corps members are preparing to go for their national service, but graduating students of Benue State University were not enlisted for the one-year program.
As you know, the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC is a compulsory program for all University, Monotechnics and Polytechnic graduates in Nigeria and you can’t exempt yourself from the service except you are above 30, have a national honour or you’re a security personnel.

Surprisingly, the graduates of Benue State University (BSU) are not being enlisted for the program.

According to reports, the graduating students of this institution were not allowed to upload their details on the NYSC portal for mobilisation. It was also reported that the agency will not allow the graduates of the school to participate in the national program for two years.

What did these students do to deserve this punishment?

When you hear about NYSC stopping graduating students from participating in the program, the question that comes to mind is why is NYSC discouraging students from participating in the course it was established to uphold?

The simple answer to that question is this: the NYSC bars graduating students of Benue State University from its program because the management of the school allegedly helped the students to manipulate their age to make them eligible for the program. The agency also accused the university of fielding the names of students that read courses that were excluded from NYSC mobilisation.

Meanwhile, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Moses Kembe has denied the allegation saying the school management was not involved in the age manipulation. The situation resulted to protest by the prospective corps members who besieged the State Secretariat of the NYSC calling for the body to reverse its decision.

The protesters, who were visibly angry, also threatened to close down the NYSC Orientation Camp at Wannune, Tarka Local Government Area (LGA) of the state, if the decision was not reversed. The NYSC State Coordinator, Mrs Awakessien Eno, said that the Student Officers fielded names of over aged students or names of students that read courses that were excluded from NYSC mobilisation.

According to her, the students affairs had colluded with some students who were quite ambitious and wanted to serve at all cost and registered them for service. An audit was carried out in most of the institutions nationwide and eventually six major institutions were affected and many of them are actually from Benue State. “The audit report has been sent to the affected schools and the schools are aware of what exactly is expected of them,” she said.