Appointment Of The New NYSC DG By The Nigerian Army Is Illegal

On Friday 29^th April, 2019 the Nigerian Army
announced the appointment of Brig.-Gen. S. Ibrahim of the Nigerian
Army University Biu as the new Director-General (DG) of the
National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) while Major General SZ
Kazaure from the National Youth Service Corps was appointed as a
Senior Resource Person to Nigerian Army Resource Centre.
This was made known in a statement signed by Col.
Sagir Musa, the spokesman of the Nigerian
Army.

The statement as it stands suggests that Major General SZ
Kazaure has ceased to be the DG of the NYSC and Brig.-Gen.
S. Ibrahim is now the new DG. This is quite appalling and
intriguing at the same time! This is because the law that regulates
the appointment and removal of the NYSC DG is the NYSC Decree, 1973
(now the NYSC Act, CAP N84, LFN 2004) and the Interpretation
Act, CAP I23 L.F.N. 2004.

Section 5 of the NYSC Act provides as follows:

“5.       Director-General of the
service corps

• There shall be for the service corps a Director-General
  who shall be appointed by the President.
• The Director-General shall be the chief executive and shall be
  charged with the general responsibility for matters affecting the
  day-to-day running of the service corps.
• The Director-General shall be assisted by directors at the
  National Directorate headquarters and State co-ordinators at the
  State headquarters.” (underlined and bolded for emphasis)

Interpretation Act on the other hand provides under section 11
thus:

“11.     Appointment

(1)       Where an enactment confers a
power to appoint a person either to an office or to exercise any
functions, whether for a specified period or not, the power
includes−

(a)       power to appoint a
person by name or to appoint the holder from time to time of a
particular office;

(b)       power to remove or
suspend him;” (underlined for emphasis)

The foregoing provision of the NYSC and Interpretation Acts
leave no doubt in the mind that only Mr President (and not anyone
else) can appoint and remove NYSC DG. For the purpose of emphasis
the statement signed by Col. Sagir Musa, the army
spokesman reads:

“The Nigerian Army has approved the postings and appointments of
some of its senior officers. Those affected by this include, Major
General SZ Kazaure who has been posted from National Youth Service
Corps to Nigerian Army Resource Centre and appointed as Senior
Resource Person … Brigadier General S Ibrahim from Nigerian Army
University Biu to National Youth Service Corps and appointed as
Director General.”

Approval of the appointment on what basis? Which law gives
Nigerian army the power to approve the appointment of NYSC DG? This
is ex facie illegal and a nullity. This best illustrates the often
quoted pronouncement of Lord Denning on null and void acts in the
case of Mcfoy v. U.A.C. (1961) 3 All ER 1169 at pg. 1172 that –
”You cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stay there,
it will collapse.”  HON. Justice Niki Tobi’s beautifully put
his own in OWNERS VS ADENIJI (1993)2 NWLR (pt
274) says:

“One can add something to something, but one cannot add
something to nothing because there will be nothing to receive the
something. The something which will have nothing to support it will
fall away, following Newton’s law of gravity or
gravitation”

Mr President should not allow such illegality to stand!

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