Any member of the National Youths Service Corps who perform outstandingly during the coming elections as part of the supporting staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission may have secured their immediate future.
The reason is that INEC’s Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, has promised automatic employment for corps members who do well on election duty.
Since last weekend when the corps members faced ordeals occasioned by poor preparation on the part of the commission, it has been taking steps to reassure them.
Apart from the fact that it has been paying them training and inconvenience allowances, it has promised to provide mattresses in some states.
On Wednesday, however, Yakubu said he had spoken to the director general of the National Youth Service Commission (NYSC) on how to improve the wellbeing of the corps members.
He said, “The youth corps members are among the most educated, most reliable, most patriotic, and most readily available ad-hoc staff we have… so we don’t joke with the wellbeing of corps members.
“Arising from my interaction with DG NYSC yesterday, they are looking at how they can mobilise mattresses, used by the youth corps members in camp to places where the youth corps members are going to stay the night so that the layover before we open the polling units on Saturday can be more comfortable for them.
“I am waiting for the DG NYSC to submit the details to the commission, but I want to assure you that anything that the commission can do to make the corps members comfortable, and all other staff, including their welfare and security, we will do.”
“Those who do exceptionally well during elections are accorded automatic employment by the commission. We would continue to improve on the welfare of corps members during elections and do whatever we can to protect them in the course of election duty.”
phenomenal.com.ng, however, learnt that some of the ‘corners’ who showed interest last weekend may no more participate this weekend.
It was gathered that they became despondent as a result of the experience they had.
One of the youth corps members told phenomenal.com.ng, “Some our guys say they are no more interested. Some say their parents asked them to withdraw. In fact, some of them did not bother to come and collect the training allowance we were paid about three days ago.”
