The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has explained how an undercover reporter, Umar Audu, was able to enroll for the compulsory one-year programme twice, in 2019 and 2023.
Eddy Megwa, the Director of Public Affairs, NYSC, who spoke on Channels Television on Thursday, noted that the Audu changed his email address and phone number to be drafted again into the scheme.
“It is not that we don’t have checks and balances in place to detect possible breaches of the system. When the undercover reporter first put in his data, the system rejected him because he had served in the scheme before. He later changed his email address and his phone number which made the system accept him and he was initially posted to Osun state,” Megwa disclosed.
“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.”
Megwa expressed confusion over the discrepancies in the reporter’s personal information, as recorded in the National Identification Number, NIN, database, adding that what was provided for his second mobilisation was not enough for the scheme to detect that he had already enrolled before.
According to him: “It is not our duty to assess their certificates, but we have resorted to inviting foreign students and giving them test to know 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.”
