NYSC Bans Benue State University (BSU) From Mobilizing Its Graduands For Service

* BSU to investigate the matter

The Management of the Benue State University (BSU), Makurdi, is
investigating the challenges that led to the banning of prospective
corps members from the institution from being mobilised for the
mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

The Vice Chancellor (VC) of the institution, Prof. Msugh Kembe,
disclosed this to newsmen on Wednesday in Makurdi.

The VC said the institution was shocked at the decision of the
NYSC to prevent it from mobilising its prospective corps members
for service.

”The NYSC did not inform the management of the institution of
its decision before executing it. The organisation did not inform
us that it had issues with the current list of prospective corps
members from our university.

”On the second of October this year, the Dean of Students
reported to me that they could not upload the names of prospective
corps members from the university on the NYSC portal.

”The management of the university then detailed the Liaison
Officer to write a letter to find out why the university could not
upload its list of prospective corps members on the NYSC
portal.

“We just got a reply of the letter just few minutes ago, but we
are doing our investigation to find out whether the fault is from
the JAMB, NYSC or the university. But I assure you that if the
problem is from our school we will fish out the culprits and
sanction them.

“We have the best forensic expert in the whole of the country
from this university and we are going to engage his services to
find out those behind this.

”I wonder why the NYSC did not fish out the culprits and
sanction them, rather it decided to come down heavily against the
whole university.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the prospective
corps members from the BSU and other higher institutions in the
state had been banned by the NYSC from partaking in the compulsory
youths service programme on allegation of falsification of age and
other sundry reasons.

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
corps discovered 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.