Rev. Israel Akanji, Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) FCT, has called for the retention of the posting policy of the NYSC.

Rev. Akanji told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday that the posting policy of the scheme had brought national cohesion and should not be stopped.

He, however, said that the scheme should maintain the status quo, stressing that the government should put measures in place that would prevent such a dastardly act in the future and not to cancel the scheme.

"I know that it is difficult, but I do pray that their parents will be encouraged to agree and we pray that it will never happen again. It’s hard for parents to say that their children should go there.

"But there are still some people in that same state now serving and we believe that God will protect them. The government should take a very strong and hard line and disallow this from happening again.’’ Rev. Akanji said

According to him, though there can be no monetary and material compensation that will assuage the feelings of the parents, government must be able to do something to help the families.

"You know that every parent trains a child with expectation that he will come back and be a blessing to the family and therefore we expect that the government will be able to do something tangible and concrete,’’ `Akanji said.


According to him, the idea behind the scheme is to bring people of diverse cultures, religious and ethnic backgrounds together.

"The posting policy of the NYSC is basically okay, this has brought a lot of national cohesion; we cannot thank God enough for the privileges of people serving in various places. We have had this bad experience; we pray it will never happen again.

"It is important for the government to talk to that state and for the people of the state to talk to themselves that they should not become hostile, but hospitable to people that are among them; youth corpers are representing the whole nation and this exercise should never stop.’’

Mr Michael Ejoh, Director Planning and Research, NYSC, also told NAN that the scheme had no power to single-handedly review the posting policy, but would consult with the relevant authority on what to do.

"You know there is a law establishing the scheme and it is part and parcel of our constitution. Nobody can talk of scraping the scheme without going through the normal process; so nobody can make any comment on that,’’ Ejoh said.

Ten NYSC members who served as ad-hoc staff in the just-concluded general elections lost their lives in Bauchi and Niger States following violence that broke out after the presidential election.

Some of the state governments, particularly in the southwest evacuated their states’ corps members from Bauchi State and other states in the northern part of the country.

Some stakeholders, parents, and even some of the corps members had been calling on the Federal Government to review the posting policy of the scheme so as to avoid a recurrence. Some others called for regional posting. (NAN)


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