The National Youth Service Corps Scheme (NYSC) has explained how an undercover reporter, Umar Audu, was able to be mobilized twice for the compulsory youth services scheme, successfully and undetected.
DAILY GIST recalls that Audu, who is a reporter with DAILY NIGERIAN investigated certificate racketeering syndicate in neighbouring African countries like Benin Republic and Togo.
He was earlier mobilised for the compulsory one-year programme in 2018 and was also mobilised for the same programme in 2023.
The journalist was able to obtain a University degree from Benin Republic in under two months and used the same to participate in the NYSC scheme.
The Director of Public Affairs, NYSC, Mr Eddy Megwa, while speaking on Channels Television on Thursday, said that the undercover reporter had first put in his data and when the system rejected him, because he had served in the scheme before, he had changed his phone number and email address and was subsequently accepted by the system.
“He did that because he was out for a particular purpose. We are looking at the situation and ensure that it does not happen again. We don’t have a database of graduates to serve in the scheme. We only rely on the lists sent to us by the Senates of the various universities, stating the number of graduates to expect from them,” he said.
Megwa who noted that the use of the National Identification Number (NIN) has been incorporated into the scheme since three years ago, could not explain why the differences in the reporter’s biodata in NIN and the data he inputted for his second mobilisation could not be detected by the system.
While stating that it was not the duty of the NYSC to verify degree certificates of graduates from foreign universities, Megwa said that the Scheme has resorted to giving them test to ascertain their abilities.
” In the course of doing that, we have made startling discoveries. Ask some of them to write a simple essay, you will be surprised at what you get. I have some of such materials that I can show you. NYSC is an elite scheme, not for illiterates and the means of communication is English Language.
“In 2006, the then DG of NYSC, Brig.- Gen. Yusuf Momoh, went to an orientation camp and asked a supposed corps member the title of his final project, the answer he gave was incredulous and further investigation revealed that his name was smuggled into the list of graduates from a particular university,” Megwa revealed.
He noted that the Scheme was collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Education, Foreign Affairs Ministry and other agencies to clamp down on perpetrators of certificate racketeering and ensure that Nigerians who patronise such ‘illegal’ tertiary institutions are detected and dealt with.
The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, blamed technology for the double deployment of an undercover journalist, Umar Audu for the NYSC scheme.
The Minister said the failure of technology was responsible for the mix-up but plans have been set in motion to avoid a future occurrence.
Meanwhile, the President of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, in the Republic of Benin, Okechukwu Favour, has appealed to the Federal Government to have a rethink on the blanket ban on certificates and degrees from higher institutions in that country.
Favour, who also appeared on the television show, said the fate of over 15,000 Nigerian students in Benin Republic is hanging in the balance.
