A sweet coincidence happened on the national terrain on Thursday. A batch of National Youth Service Corps members completed their programme and received their discharge certificates while lawmakers-elect also received their certificate of returns.
The youth corps members got the vital documents in the various states they served while the assemblymen got theirs in Abuja – amid fanfare and opulent hopes.
But the coincidence came with an irony worthy of note: Despite the fact that the job of the lawmakers is a juicy one, going by the fact that fat ‘remunerations’ are impatiently waiting for them, they got their certificates of return free. And that is normal, one should note. What is, however, absurd is the fact that youth corps members, who had compulsorily served their fatherland almost free of charge – they got N19,000 monthly, which is about N600 daily – had to pay a N3,000 fee to obtain their own discharge certificates! Someone said it was like asking a prisoner to pay for his discharge document after completing his jail term!
Was the obscene fee applicable in all the areas or states? Was the payment official? One cannot really say yet, but this was said to have happened at a local government in Lagos. An account given by the father of one of the affected ‘corpers’ is disturbing. He noted in a Facebook post titled Nigeria and NYSC:
“How do we make our young ones believe in this country?
My daughter finished with the NYSC scheme today and the local government which oversaw her discharge was Lagos Island.However,theyhad to pay N3000 for the certificate. No receipt issued. Is the NYSC Director aware of this or what was this meant for? Are we not teaching them corruption goes unpunished?”
