Some former members of the National Youth Service Corps, who served in three states of the Federation, have lamented the nonpayment of allowances owed them during their one-year compulsory service scheme.
Investigations by our correspondent revealed that this practice had been going on for a long time in states like Rivers, Niger and Osun states.
An ex-corps member, Olawunmi Aminu, who served with the Osun State Government in 2014 (batch C), told our correspondent that he and his colleagues had waited for the Osun State Government for almost four years for the 12 months allowance owed them by the state.
She disclosed that the same set of corps members were actively involved in the conduct of the elections that ushered in the Governor Rauf Aregbesola administration almost four years ago, adding that once the governor leaves and nothing is done about their predicament, their hope of getting that which they laboured for would be dashed.
Aminu said, “They asked us to do verification two years ago, online, hoping they would pay, but nothing has happened. My bank account that has been dormant for years suddenly became active since the verification and has been receiving alert of 0.13kobo every month from Sterling Bank.
“Over 2000 corps members cannot be unfairly treated in this manner, after faithfully serving for one year in the state. We worked and they didn’t give us a penny; moreover, we were promised.”
Another ex-corps member, who served in Rivers State, Aisha Babatunde, claimed that Batch B of the 2015 Rivers State corps members had yet to be paid their one-year allowance, as promised them by the state government.
Babatunde said, “We were even promised on national radio after some youth corpers were killed during the election period. We were already happy that, at last, we would be paid such that we even did registration and it was even said that the corpers that were posted to remote villages in the state would be paid N15,000 monthly, while corpers in town would be paid N10,000 monthly.
“Even the 2013 set that served in Eleme were supposed to be paid N10,000 monthly by the state government. They were promised that the accumulated sum of their allowances would be paid at the completion of their service year. But till date, no dime has been paid to anybody.
“This is really unfair, and during this period, there was a serious community clash in Ebubu community, which resulted in massive killings and the government didn’t care about the corps members living in the community, as no government official could even visit to check on them and yet their money was also not paid. This is 2018, we need our money. Rivers State Government, Governor Wike, pay us our money.”
Another ex-corps member, Obose Oriarewoh, who served with the Niger State Government in 2014, similarly accused the state government of not fulfilling its promises.
She said, “We also had the same issue of nonpayment of our 10 months allowance in 2014. Batch C corps members in the state were not paid our state allowance. But the irony was that the batch before my set, Batch B members, were paid.
“We want the Federal Government to look into this matter urgently so as to put a stop to this practice. After all, they (FG) have not defaulted in the monthly allowance given to corpers. So, why should they condone such practice from the states?”
