NYSC: where is our allowee? (Published in The Nation, The Punch, The Guardian, Blueprint Newspapers)

NYSC: Where is our allowee?

Folarin Samson

It is high time the Federal Government looked into the unbearable delay in the payment of corps members’ monthly allowance. This trend is assuming a very dangerous proportion and corps members are not happy with it. Many are already threatening fire and brimstone. If the Federal Government is not aware, corps members across the federation under the auspices of National Association of Aggrieved Youth Corpers are planning to embark on strike actions which they termed ‘No Pay, No work’. It is unfortunate and shameful things have degenerated to this nauseating stage that corps members now think of strike. We have never had it so bad. The rumour is rife that there are people diverting the money into private accounts on fixed deposit. We want to know the truth.

Corps members in the country certainly deserve better treatment going by the pain many of us go through. Our uniform gives many of the people in our host communities the false impression we are living large. Some of them surcharge us for every small item we buy because we are government ‘pikin’ and yet, we are as hungry and angry as some of them are.

I want to appeal to the Director General of the NYSC, Brigadier Okorie-Affa to please use his good offices to urgently look into the matter. There was tension in the country sometime ago when the salary of the nation’s servicemen was delayed by just few days prompting the government to issue circular to calm frayed nerves. I wonder if we are not important too or our selfless national service is not valued for us to be treated with such shoddiness. And yet, we are not on salary, all we collect is allowance. We depend on this stipend not only for our upkeeps, as there are some of us who are also saddled with responsibilities from home.

I don’t want to believe the statement credited to coordinating minister of the economy Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala recently on Sahara Reporters has anything to do with this. The coordinating minister was quoted as saying Nigeria is cash strapped and can’t pay monthly allocations including NYSC allowance. That must be a big joke. The take home package of our senators and reps makes it a joke. The allocation for the President’s feeding allowances makes it a big joke. The billions of money being bandied with reckless abandon at the investigative committees set up to probe the various scandals make it a big joke. But we are not laughing at this cruel, wicked, sardonic, lugubrious joke. Only action, quick urgent action will save corps members from declaring "to thy tents oh Israel".