March 17, (THEWILL) – A few months ago, the National Youth Service Corps received a letter from the National Salaries and Wages Commission notifying it that the Federal Government had increased the monthly allowance of serving corps members from N33,000 to N77,000.
That bit of information was, as expected, celebrated across the country, particularly by corps members themselves who are the primary beneficiaries of the gesture. They could heave a sigh of relief, at last and look forward to completing the service year in relative comfort.
Fast-forward to March 2025. The increment still has not reflected in the monthly allowance received by corps members since July 2024.
Something must be wrong somewhere, they concluded.
Explaining the delay, the Director-General of NYSC, Brigadier-General Yushau Ahmed said the Federal Government had yet to release funds for the implementation of new allowance.
Disappointed, angry and frustrated by the endless struggle to cope with the prevailing hardship in the country, corps members growled, ‘This is unfair. Who are the devils doing this to us?’
This is exactly the question that many concerned Nigerians are asking at the moment across the country. Who are the people behind the delay in the implementation of the N77,000 monthly allowance due serving corps members?
Sadly, since the NYSC boss did not specify when implementation of the increment will begin, the situation persists. The status quo remains as it is: An unwanted post-graduate course in endurance, hunger and pain-absorption.
The grapevine is replete with gossip intended to establish possible motives for the delay in the implementation of the increment. While some people view it as a gimmick by politicians from the ruling political party to ensure that, come 2027 General Election, corps members will vote for the party, others believe that corrupt elements within the government might be behind the delay for obviously dubious reasons.
A third school of thought appears convinced that the government actually lacked the capacity to provide adequate funds for the implementation of the new allowance on a monthly basis. If this is true, then the government needs to be told that reneging on its promise to ensure that subsequent batches of corps members benefit from the increment of the monthly allowance may have far-reaching consequences for the future of the party and the country at large.
THEWILL believes it is the Federal Government’s responsibility to bring an end to privations suffered by serving corps members wherever they are posted. The welfare of corps members should be treated as a matter of top priority.
It takes a lot of courage, passion and patriotism to serve a country mired in insecurity, infrastructural decay, economic depression, acute corruption and more without soiling your hands in the process. That is what corps members, past or present, are. And they deserve respect.
Some have either been maimed or killed in the course of serving their country. The tragic events that occurred in parts of northern Nigeria during the 2015 presidential election, in which some corps members serving as ad hoc staff to the Independent National Electoral Commission lost their lives, are still fresh in our collective memory.
Corps members deserve a better deal. It is up to the Federal Government that they get it.
