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With calm gradually returning to Jos, the Plateau state capital and scene of last week's bloody riots which claimed more than 300 lives, including those of members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), there is a growing call among parents for the scrapping of the scheme.
With calm gradually returning to Jos, the Plateau state capital and scene of last week's bloody riots which claimed more than 300 lives, including those of members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), there is a growing call among parents for the scrapping of the scheme.
No fewer than three corps members, according to the Lagos state coordinator of the scheme, Mr. Anthony Ani, lost their lives in the mayhem. Ani, who confirmed this when he paid a condolence visit to the parents of one of the corps member killed, Ibukun Akinjogbin, at Meiran in Lagos, promised that NYSC would take care of the burial expenses of the deceased.
Apart from the three youth corps members officially confirmed dead by the authorities, P.M.News gathered many others are still missing. Following the wanton killing of corps members by the rioters, their parents have launched a mobilisation campaign for the cancellation of the scheme.
Firing the first salvo was Mr. Akintola Tokunbo Akinjogbin, father of Ibukun Akinjogbin, a corps member butchered in the Jos riots. 'I don't understand why the Nigerian government should subject our children to death on an annual basis. Every year, youth corps members die in their numbers. The government should please scrap this programme.
'Parents would have laboured to educate their children and in the process of doing their youth service, those children will die. This is very unfair,' Akinjogbin stated.
Another parent, a professor at the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, in a text message to P.M.News, called on parents to come together and tell the government to cancel the NYSC scheme.
The professor who said he lost his 28-year-old nephew in the crisis, stated: 'Dear parents, the recent Jos crisis claimed the lives of several NYSC members, including our 28-year-old nephew.
'He was butchered in cold blood along with two others corps members in their house, for no reason. No parent should go through such sorrow. Please, join the campaign for the abrogation of NYSC. Enough is enough. Do not wait until your child is wasted.'
The professor called on recipients of the message to send it to five other parents. Another parent, who identified himself as Mr. Odusole, also called for the scrapping of the NYSC scheme. In his message, he disclosed that he lost his 21-year-old son, Tola Odusole, who was to complete his NYSC in February, in the Jos killings.
'He was slaughtered in cold blood along with Leke and Ibukun,' he added. P.M.News learnt that many parents have received this message and have been passing it to others.
Parents with children serving under the scheme, investigations revealed, have sent letters to the NYSC Director-General, Maj.-Gen. Yusuf Bomoi, expressing their desire for the cancellation of the scheme. It was gathered that parents with children posted to states close to Plateau have asked their children to come home for fear that the crisis might spread to the states.
Most of the corps members who spoke with P.M.News, at the Iyana-Ipaja, Lagos, orientation camp of the NYSC, also supported their parents. They said there was no need sending them to states where they would be slaughtered by rioters or religious fundamentalists. Some of them said they preferred being posted to the southern states instead of the northern ones which are prone to religious and communal riots.