100% behind this, will also pass the link on

�History lives on in Kano's medieval levels of poverty too. Most Hausa women, according to a March report by UNESCO are the least educated on earth: 97% of those ages 17 to 22 have completed less than two years in school� ---- TIME's Reporter, Alex Perry, in �New Hope For Nigeria� April 25, 2011.

The NYSC has lasted for close to four decades. Those mostly meant to profit from it have apparently rejected it. So...

While the undersigned above stress on the urgency to relocate our Youth Corpers to lesser volatile states, I would appeal to the present admininstration to create an ad hoc committee with the sole responsibility for weighing the MERITS and DEMERITS of National Youth Corps Service on the scale, and come up with a recommendation on whether the AIMS and OBJECTIVES that underpin the formation of this institution have been actualised. If not, I sincerely move that it should be scrapped or be made optional instead of mandetory. I am compelled to make this suggestion not because I lost 3 dear ones in the killing spree but for the sake of future or further anarchy resulting from such killing that might lead to unimaginable conflagration. A stitch in time, they say, saves nine.

The program has outlived its usefulness.....It's high time they scrapped it. Several calls have gone out to the government to reform the program to no avail.

Stop exposing innocent kids to this cruelty.

any corper that is killed in electoral violence from now on will only have him or her self to blame.
the nysc certificate is only a requisite for working for govt.
what percentage of excorpers end up working for govt?

To my understandiing the main purpose of NYSC is for national reconcilation--Does it serve that purpose?

I fully support this petition. Life is sacred. The sharia states are too dangerous for non-Muslims youth coopers to serve.

To My Dear 3 Who lost Their Lives

You were there to serve
In response to Nigeria�s call.

You were there to serve
With love, strength and faith.

You were there to serve
And to be faithful, loyal, and honest.

To uphold your nation�s honour and glory
And to defend her unity.

But lo and behold,
You met your untimely death

Leaving me and your kith and kin
To mourn for your dishonourable death.

Chi2, April 23, 2011

^^^^

Bob,

Nowadays, the banking instituitions and telecommunications firms among many others request for NYSC discharge certificates when hiring.

Chi2,
I feel your pain. It is a terrible thing to be facing. Please everyone, there is no reason for us to be shedding these tears this time next year. Please spread the word about this petition and get everyone you know to sign it. If you know any newspaper or TV people who will have the courage to publish it, let them know. Spread the word - please!! This mess must stop!

Hi peeps,
Thanks for your willingness to be a part of this great cause. Please leave comments here if you have any trouble with signing the petition so that admin can know what is going on and fix it.

Thanks.

What a worthy cause!

I am in full support of this petition. In fact I am already following my pledge to raise support for the signatures. May the souls of the dead rest in peace. Amen.

The goal of this exercise must be to make sure that action is taken in whatever form to make sure that the likes of Obinna and Ukeoma are never placed by authorities in a situation where they will beaten to death by crazed mobs . Let this be the last time this will happen. Let our slogan be as it has been after the holacust - NEVER AGAIN. NEVER, NEVER AGAIN!!!!

Do you call it National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) or
�Now Youth Suffering Continues (NYSC)� But now it is no longer any of these but
�Now Youth Shadow of Death Commanded (NYSDC)�

The killings of innocent Nigerians are unacceptable no matter the circumstance not alone considering that those killed in the recent post-election violence in the North were for assigned national duty. In fact I will sign this petition as Obinna requested but this will not be enough to slow my anger unless the government urgently appoint independent sturdy panel as Chi 2 suggested to tell Nigerians why the NYSC programme should not be scrapped with immediate effect. And as some of you have commented, the usefulness of the NYSC is no longer admissible in Nigeria of today. If the independent panel of enquiry at last still sees the need for such programme to continue, the option as Obinna suggested should be voluntary for a corper to choose where to serve. However, I must emphasize the need to pay compensation to the diseased families and not only that, to have the families be entitled for a kind of security benefits throughout their life time because for this purpose they have worked so hard to send their children to the University. Children are the Social welfare?pension and insurance and security for their families in Nigeria.
�Now Youth Shadow of Death Commanded (NYSDC)� NEVER! NEVER!! NEVER!!!

For those of you that are still expecting to pass through that death camp called �NYSC� please avoid it if you can!!!

May God Almighty recompense those who killed these young people with evil and may the sole of the dead rest in peace!

WE MUST NOT WAIT ANYMORE FOR JONATHAN BADLUCK TO RESCUE US!!!

WE NEED TO RESCUE OURSELVES AND RUN FOR OUR LIVES NOW - IF OUR LIVES ARE DEAR TO US INDEED!!!

NO AMOUNT OF MONEY CAN COMPENSATE FOR A LOST LIFE

No doubts about it that the petition is a good initiative. At the same time, I want to remind you that things are deteriorating in the region at a fast rate and I am afraid to say that before you guys gather the targeted 10000 signatures, more genocides will be commited. In my opinion, anybody that cherishes his life and wants to do something tangible with it should not wait till NVS collects 1000 or 10000 signatures. Instead, I advise them to pack their bags NOW and leave that region for good as soon as possible and say TO HELL TO NIGERIA'S NYSC!!! I want to believe that your lives are much more important than that useless NYSC certificate. If you don't have money, borrow money from anybody or ask your parents to send some to you.

PLEASE REMEMBER THIS:

LIFE IS THE MOST PRECIOUS, INVALUABLE AND IRREPLACEABLE THING THAT YOU HAVE.

THEREFORE, YOU MUST NEVER RISK NOR LOOSE YOUR LIVES FOR THOSE THAT DON'T APPRECIATE YOU - INCLUDING NIGERIA OR THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT!!!
I have said it before many times over and over that Jonathan is a disaster and another badluck for Nigeria and Nigerians - including even the South. The situation we find ourselves in after the elections is really very very unfortunate in the sense that the votes that produced Jonathan as the president are protests vote. Jonathan won the election simply because Southerners in Nigeria are tired of having Northerners - irrespective of the party - as their leader(s). In my series titled "WHY JONATHAN, AGANGA AND ALLISON-MADUEKE MUST BE REMOVED NOW AT ANY COST AND BY ANY MEANS" written more than 12 months ago, I made it clear that Jonathan is nothing but another incompetent, corrupt, visionless and morally bankrupt opportunists and that his decisions, actions(inactions), policies e.t.c. pose very serious threat to the political stability, sovereigntity, economic interests of Nigeria and the lives of Nigerians.

In any normal country, the major responsibility of any government and/or president is the guarantee of the lives and properties of the citizens. As we all, there is nothing that is more sacred and dear to any human-being than life. This pogrom taking place again in the North should be the third or even the fourth time since Jonathan became president. Now, my question is "What did he do then and now to ensure the safety of the lives and properties of Nigerians? NOTHING!!! tHE IMPRESSION ONE HAS IS THAT NIGERIA/NIGERIANS DON'T HAVE A PRESIDENT! Otherwise, please tell me what the hell do we need and have a president, squander billions of dollars to procure arms and maintain hundreds of thousands of police, soldiers and state security agents/officers? Wherer was the so called SSS when these people were planning these evil act? That's why I wrote in another series that Nigeria at 50, is a failed state, biggest banana republic in the world, a very sick and doomed country.


FOR ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN TO US THE THIRD TIME, WE ARE TO BE BLAMED!


When the first pogrom took place in the North without Jonathan coming to our aid, undoubtedly, it made sense to blame this incompetent opportunist called Jonathan. When it happened the second time again, and neither Jonathan, the police, army, SSS, the governors of these Sharia states did not come to our aid again, then it already made no sense to blame these people simply because we ought to had known by then that none of these people including Jonathan was neither interested nor capable of protecting us and that we could and should not rely on them. When the second pogrom took place, I expected any loving parents to travel to the North and bring their children back home, and ask them to either forget about the NYS or try to get a relocation for them.

Since it's now obvious that Jonathan is only a figure head and completely unreliable Commander in Chief, we can no more rely on him and need to take the initiatives to secure the lives of our Souther kinsmen over there. Now, what I expect all Southern governors, irrespective of party affiliation, to do now is to send luxury buses to all the troubled states in the North and evacuate any Southerner(not only youth corpers) who shows the desire to leave FOR FREE!!! The evacuated youth corpers should be relocated to different states in the South and middle belt. In addition, the house of assemblies of respective Southern and middle belt states should IMMEDIATELY(as a matter of urgency) that will prohibit indigenes of their states from being posted to the North or going there to serve for the NEXT 20 YEARS!!! We need to demonstrate to these barbarians that we value our lives. If they don't want us to come there and train, teach, treat their people and develop their region, then, the reasonable thing to do is to leave them alone to sort themselves out by themselves. Furthermore, any loving parents MUST NEVER ALLOW their children (if they are really dear to them) to go to the North again to serve UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - if Jonathan comes out tomorrow and say that everything is under control in the region. And finally, any youth corper who cherishes his life too must never accept any invitation to serve in the north under any circumstances. In my opinion, this is the solution to this chronic problem. We don't need to wait for any useless and incapacitated Jonathan Good/Badluck again.


YOU ARE FREE TO REPUBLISH THIS POST ON YOUR BLOG, SOCIAL WEB SITES AND SEND IT TO FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES, POLITICIANS, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS, E.T.C Thanks

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Well done Akwa Ibom and Osun State governments. Other states should follow suit and do likewise before the gubernatorial elections on Tuesday o

[QUOTE=]3,000 NYSC Members Stranded In Bauchi

Akwa Ibom, Osun Evacuate Indigenes

ABOUT 3,000 members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving in Bauchi State are awaiting evacuation to their states of origin following the continued insecurity in the state.

Quartered in the State Security Services (SSS) Development Centre on Maiduguri Road, for the fourth day, some the corps members said they were not sure how long they would be holed up at the centre.

However, some state governments have taken the responsibility of transporting corps members from their states out of Bauchi.

The Guardian learnt that Osun and Akwa Ibom at the weekend ferried their states� corps members from Bauchi.

And in Lagos yesterday, some businessmen from the Southeast were frantically making efforts to arrange for chartered flights to evacuate from Bauchi corps members who are from Enugu, Abia, Imo, Ebonyi and Anambra States.

Initial efforts to deploy luxury buses were shelved when the NYSC Director General Brig.-Gen., M. I. Tsiga, reportedly said, �he could not guarantee the safety of the corps members on the long stretch of road from the northern axis of the country.�

However, the leader of the corps members from Anambra State, Mr. Ebuka Okolochukwu, said on telephone yesterday that Tsiga had promised to evacuate the corps members but �he didn�t say the exact date.�

Okolochukwu said that, �after the president�s speech that the state government should take care of us, our state government has promised to send some buses for us. They plan to evacuate us to Gombe and then airlift us to Lagos. But nothing has been heard from them.�

According to him, the threat of violence in Bauchi has reduced �but we are not allowed to go outside the camp.�

He noted that since Akwa Ibom and Osun corps members had left, �security became lax (at the camp), as the gates of the centre are opened and people are trooping in without check. Anything can happen; there are no policemen here, only soldiers, but they are not enough.�

Another corps leader said they didn�t know when their state government would send a team to evacuate them. There is no definite plan. The DG (NYSC) said we should be patient and that he would provide vehicles and escorts. We are waiting.�

On Friday in Bauchi, while condemning the acts of violence, Brig.-Gen Tsiga told the corps members that, �our concern is to ensure your safety by organising a convoy of vehicles that will take you to the nearest safe places to your homes so that you will be reunited with your parents.�

He acknowledged the insecurity on the roads �as the situation was still tense,� but added corps members should join their parents, who were ready to take them out of the camp.

In the interim, a Senior Media Aide to the Akwa Ibom State governor said the government got �reports from corps members in different parts of the country, complaining about their safety and they wanted to come home.�

�The governor responded by sending buses to bring them. I can confirm that the governor provided buses to bring them back,� he said.

The Osun State government also confirmed that the �Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has evacuated 70 out of about 200 marooned corps members, who are indigenes of the state, in crisis-ridden northern states.�

The governor had set up a task force headed by the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mr. Adejare Bello.

According to an official of the state, the returning corps members were welcomed home on the premises of the State House of Assembly in Osogbo by the Speaker, who described the step taken by the Aregbesola administration �as a demonstration of its sustained interest in the welfare of the people irrespective of where they reside within or outside the country.�

The corps members lauded Aregbesola for being the first governor to show concern for marooned corps members in the North.

Many of the corps members form a large part of the ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and their absence may threaten the polls in Bauchi, rescheduled for April 28 due to the post-election violence there.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45788:3000-nysc-members-stranded-in-bauchi-&catid=1:national&Itemid=559[/QUOTE]

Akwa Ibom and Osun governors are far-sighted. They were quick to evacuate their sons and daughters from the NYCS camp. When Hitler sang his Nazi party patriotic National Anthem, Deutschland, Deutschland, uber alles (German, German, above all alse), Winston Churchill understood the meaning of that song and fervently replied, "God Save the King". Churchill did not actually leave his people in the hand of an unseen God. He did put security structures in place to ward off Hitler's mad design.

The danger light has been beamed. We hope our governors will not abandon our Youth Corpers quartered under the baking sun as could be seen from the above posted photo. What goes inside the minds of these folks could only be imagined than stated.

If they should be evacuated by road, adequate security measure MUST be put in place to make sure that their lorries are NOT AMBUSHED.

If by air, sufficient planes must be stationed on the host state's soil while evacuation continues by peacemeal. The airfield from where our Youth Corpers are been evacuated MUST have its one mile perimeter sealed off with soldiers and police on patrol until the airlifting is completed.

Planes coming to airlift our Corpers MUST have MEDICAL DOCTORS and NURSES on board.

Our governors and a handfull of policy makers should suspend their campaign for re-election at least, for a few hours and wait for our Corpers at the airports or bus stations to welcome the traumatised Corpers.

I would prefer the idea of withdrawing all our Corpers to their respective states of origin to relocating them to the so called lesser volatile areas. There is nothing like lesser volatile area anymore. The atmosphere is pregnant with explosive potentials.

http://www.thisdayonline.com/

FG to Compensate, Immortalise Slain Corps Members

26 Apr 2011


Brig-General M. Tsiga , NYSC DG


The Federal Government has concluded arrangements to compensate the families of the corps members killed during the post election violence in some parts of the country.

The Director General of the National Youths Service Corps, NYSC Brigadier General MI Tsiga disclosed this while visiting the displaced corps members in Bauchi and Kano.

He disclosed that having laid down their lives in the service of their fatherland, government will spare no efforts in making sure that the youth corpers did not die in vain.

According to the DG ,the deceased corps members will be given national honours post-humously and immortalised.

Tsiga said the president had earlier visited the Suleja bomb victims at the Gwagwalada Specialist Hospital where reiterated the promise and praised the gallantry of the corps members.

Said he : In order to allay the fears of the already panic-stricken corps members and their parents, any corps member who can no longer continue the service in the affected states will be redeployed to his or her place of choice. For those who still wish to continue in the electoral process, double measures have been put in place to provide adequate security for them.

In as much as NYSC may be an excellent orientation to expose young Nigerian graduates to other regions of the country, I support 100% the withdrawal of Youth Corps from trouble prone states now. In fact, they should never be deployed and exposed to such horrendous violence and mayhem again. For many of them and their families, it has been a painful and horrendous experience. They are killing the future leaders, scientists, doctors, lawyers, academicians, etc.

Please withdraw corpers from the north and never allow them to go there again..these hausa's are intensely wicked and mean..may God recompense tribulation on all the murderers! they will never know peace till they die in pain.

I want my son�s corpse � says 62-year-old mother of slain corps member
Posted by admin Headlines, NYSC (National Youth Service Corp) Tuesday, April 26th, 2011


A survivor of the recent mayhem that killed several corps members in the North narrates how she escaped death by the whiskers as mourning parents and relations of victims call on the National Youth Service Corps to release the bodies of their children in this report by SEGUN OLUGBILE

When Seun Adewumi completed his degree programme at the Olabisi Onabanjo University , Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, his dream was to take care of his 62-year-old mother, a retired cleaner of the Judicial Service Commission, Lagos State .

With enthusiasm, he gladly received his posting to Bauchi State for the one year mandatory National Youth Service Corps Scheme with the hope that he would get a good job after his service year and move his mother from the uncompleted building she lives in, at Agbado, an outskirt of Lagos , to a more decent apartment.

But this dream was shattered as life was snuffed out of the 27 year-old Political Science graduate in a gruesome manner last Monday by post-election rioters in Giade, the headquarters of Giade Local Government Area of Bauchi State.

Born in Lagos , Adewumi, a native of Imojo-Ekiti in Oye Ekiti Local Government Area of Ekiti State, was the only graduate out of his mother�s six children.

One of the corps members that survived the attack where over seven of her colleagues met their untimely deaths, Wumi, said Seun was butchered to death by rioters.

According to the female corps member, who spoke with our correspondent on the telephone on Sunday, the corps members became agitated when they discovered that the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission located beside the Youth Corps Members lodge in Giade had been set on fire by the rioters.

�The Youth Corps Members� Lodge is just a stone throw to the INEC office, so when we saw it on fire, we all ran to the police station for safety. The Divisional Police Officer allowed us to stay. But a few minutes later, the rioters numbering over 300, swooped on the police station, stoned the policemen, overran the station and set it on fire. The rioters had their way because the policemen were only shooting teargas canisters against them. One of the stones hit the DPO on his head and it was at this point that he ordered all of us to leave the station,�� Wumi said.

The corps members were thus forced out of the police station into the waiting hands of the devil-inspired rioters. While some, including Wumi, escaped with wounds, seven others including Seun could not make it. They were butchered by the rioters, who were protesting the defeat of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, (retd), the candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change in the April 16 Presidential Election.

�It was a war situation and all of us were just running at different directions. They were inflicting machete cuts on us. They hit me on the head, on the shoulder and back but I kept on running. But thank God, two men on Okada just emerged from nowhere and confronted my attackers. They pleaded with them to leave us alone but when they discovered that they were desperate to kill all of us, one of them just carried me and put me on the motorcycle and sped off. I was taken to a village far from the war zone,�� she narrated.

When her rescuers saw that she could die of bleeding, they reported her case to the Emir of the village that assisted her in getting medical attention.

�The emir sent a car to take me to the hospital. But before I was rescued, Seun and others were killed by the rioters in a gruesome manner. Some of them were set on fire,� she said.

At Lagos , Seun�s mother, Mrs. Beatrice Adewumi, had become apprehensive after learning that corps members were being killed in some parts of the North including Bauchi.

Though her son spoke with her a day earlier (on Sunday), she still called her younger brother, Venerable Samuel Ojo, who is also the Vicar of The African Church Cathedral, College Road, Ifako-Ijaiye, Lagos to confirm if he had spoken with Seun in recent time. The woman, who spoke with our correspondent at the vicarage of The African Church Cathedral on Sunday amidst sobs, said she did not know that that Sunday was the last time she would speak with her son.

�He called me on Sunday and said I should please tell one of our distant relations who is a lawyer to get a job for him as he was scheduled to complete his service year in June. I did not know that that would be the last time I would speak with my star. Seun had made a lot of promises to me. He said I should not worry that he would take good care of me.

�Each time he came home from school for food and money, he would call me aside and say, �Mummy, don�t worry, I know that you don�t have money but please try and finance my education, I will soon complete my education and after graduation, I will take very good care of you.� I didn�t know that that promise would not be kept. They have killed my hope, they have killed my shinning light,� the woman who was surrounded by relatives and her brother, Ojo, cried.

Beatrice said she retired in 2009 from the service of the Lagos State Government. She pleaded with the NYSC to release the corpse of her son to her.

�My brother spent over four days before he could get the NYSC Bauchi to confirm his death. But please tell them to give me his corpse because in our tradition when you say somebody is dead, we must see the corpse. Omo eni ku san ju omo eni sonu lo, e bami gbe oku re abi kile fe fi se leyin igba ti eti pa (It is better to lose a child to death than to say a child is missing, please give me his corpse or what else do you want to do with the corpse after you have killed him,)� she said to no one in particular.

Seun�s sister, Ruth, also said that the family would miss the deceased in so many ways. �Seun suffered; many times he would go and do odd jobs to complement the little money our mother could give. He was determined to succeed but see how some senseless, uneducated and barbaric people just killed him. Government should scrap the NYSC. They should compensate my mother because she sacrificed a lot to see him through the university,� Ruth, who is a trained hairdresser, said.

Speaking on the trauma the family had gone through since the young man was killed on Monday; Ojo expressed bitterness at the inability of the NYSC to inform them about the death. This, he said, further traumatised the family as members were left in the dark concerning his whereabouts.

Narrating the event that led to the death of Seun, Ojo said Seun called him around 10am on Monday, April 18 to pray for him as there was a crisis in Giade.

�I asked him what the problem was and he said the rioters had attacked the INEC office and they were on their way to the police station because their lodge was not far from the place. I said he should not worry that we would be praying. But when I called him back, he said they were already in the police station. I was happy but when I called him back around 1pm his mobile phone was dead. I became apprehensive.

�We started calling all his friends and other people from our church that were posted to Bauchi. Nobody knew anything about his whereabouts. Some of them gave us the number of the Bauchi State Coordinator of the NYSC, that of his personal assistant and the Zonal Inspector of Seun�s local government. We tried all the numbers but nobody picked it. It was not until Thursday that the personal assistant to the coordinator picked my call and confirmed that Seun was no more. What the NYSC did was not fair. We were traumatised and subjected to emotional trauma between Monday and Thursday last week,� he said.

The angry cleric said if not for God and his faith in Jesus, he would have gone on a vengeance mission, because according to him, there was no reason why corps members should be attacked because of election.

�Even Seun did not participate in the election. He was not one of the corps members used for the election, so why should they kill him. They should just release his corpse to us and they should compensate the family,� he said.

Some of the seven corps members killed at the police station, according to one of the Corps Liaison Officer in Bauchi State , include Ukeoma Ikechukwu, Anslem Sylvester Nkwazema, Obinna Okpokiri and Kehinde Adeniyi.

According to the CLO, who pleaded anonymity, because corps members are not allowed to speak to the press, Ukeoma and Nkwazema were chased by an angry mob on April 18 and ran into a police station at Giade.

�Unfortunately, the mob was so large than they were able to overpower the policemen after setting the station on fire and all the corps members ran out. Ukweoma and Nkwazema were beaten to death by the mob.

�Adeniyi, a Muslim, who was identified by one of his pupils, was subsequently beaten to death by the angry mob.

Okpokiri, according to a friend that schooled with him in the United Kingdom, was not only beaten to death, but was burnt after he was killed.

The CLO added that Ikechukwu had by 6.48am that day posted a message on his Face book wall narrating how he nearly escaped being lynched by election riggers after he refused to hand over ballot papers to them during the election on April 16.

�The timely intervention of the police saved me,� Ikechukwu whose Face book name is Ukeoma Aikfavour, had written.

�These CPC supporters would have killed me yesterday, no see threat ooo. Even after forcing under-age voters on me, they wanted me to give them the remaining ballot papers to thumb print. Thank God for the police and I�m happy I could stand for God and my nation. To all corps members who stood despite these threats especially in the North, bravo! Nigeria our change has come,� he added.

On the same Face book page some hours later, a friend named Vivesparkle Emmanuel wrote,

�Please, you all should pray for Aik. As at yesterday, some angry mob were shooting guns around them. They were able to take them later to the nearest police station only for him to call that the mob were threatening to burn down the place. We�ve lost contact with him because his phone has been unreachable. Kindly pray for him and others in the same condition. Thanks.�

But the call for prayers came rather too late as Aik was one of the unfortunate corps members killed by the rioters.

Their deaths have, however, renewed calls for the scrapping of the NYSC as most parents including Ojo, are now calling on the Federal Government to do away with the scheme.

But Seun�s mother said that if government would not scrap the NYSC, it should only post corps members to states within their geo-political zones.

�In Ekiti, we don�t maltreat corps members. We take care of them, we give them free accommodation, if the Hausa people are killing our children, then they should not be posted to the North again. Let them serve in their geo-political zones. But they should please release my son�s corpse so that we can give him a proper and befitting burial,� the sad mother said.

to him, there was no reason why corps members should be attacked because of an election.

�Even Seun did not participate in the election. He was not one of the corps members used for the election, so why should they kill him. They should just release his corpse to us and they should compensate the family,� he said.

Some of the seven corps members killed at the police station, according to one of the Corps Liaison Officer in Bauchi State, were Ukeoma Ikechukwu, Anslem Sylvester Nkwazema, Obinna Okpokiri and Kehinde Adeniyi.

According to the CLO, who pleaded anonymity, because corps members are not allowed to speak to the press, Ukeoma and Nkwazema were chased by an angry mob on April 18 and ran into a police station at Giade.

�Unfortunately, the mob was so large than they were able to overpower the policemen after setting the station on fire and all the corps members ran out. Ukweoma and Nkwazema were beaten to death by the mob.

�Adeniyi, a Muslim, who was identified by one of his pupils, was subsequently beaten to death by the angry mob.

Okpokiri, according to a friend that schooled with him in the United Kingdom, was not only beaten to death, but was burnt after he had been killed.�

The CLO added that Ikechukwu had by 6.48am that day posted a message on his Facebook wall narrating how he nearly escaped being lynched by election riggers after he refused to hand over ballot papers to them during the election on April 16.

�The timely intervention of the police saved me,� Ikechukwu whose Face book name is Ukeoma Aikfavour, had written.

�These CPC supporters would have killed me yesterday, no see threat ooo. Even after forcing under-age voters on me, they wanted me to give them the remaining ballot papers to thumb print. Thank God for the police and I�m happy I could stand for God and my nation. To all corps members who stood despite these threats especially in the North, bravo! Nigeria our change has come,� he added.

On the same Face book page some hours later, a friend named Vivesparkle Emmanuel wrote,

�Please, you all should pray for Aik. As at yesterday, some angry mob were shooting guns around them. They were able to take them later to the nearest police station only for him to call that the mob were threatening to burn down the place. We�ve lost contact with him because his phone has been unreachable. Kindly pray for him and others in the same condition. Thanks.�

But the call for prayers came rather too late as Aik was one of the unfortunate corps members killed by the rioters.

Their deaths have, however, renewed calls for the scrapping of the NYSC as most parents including Ojo, are now calling on the Federal Government to do away with the scheme.

But Seun�s mother said that if government would not scrap the NYSC, it should only post corps members to states within their geo-political zones.

�In Ekiti, we don�t maltreat corps members. We take care of them, we give them free accommodation, if the Hausa people are killing our children, then they should not be posted to the North again. Let them serve in their geo-political zones. But they should please release my son�s corpse so that we can give him a proper and befitting burial,� the grieving mother said

Our State governors need to get an injunction from the court to stop the NYSC from posting Corpers from their states to any of these Northern states. Haba, enough is enough.

BRF should also ask the NYSC program to refund the money he used to repatriate his Corpers back to Lagos State.

Anytime I view the pictures of the slain coprers in various newspapers and websites, it does somethiing to my soul.
It is impossible to imagine a future with those who have no qualms killing people because they hail from a particular place or hold a particular belief.
I think these election reprisal attacks in the north against mostly southern corpers and citizens should be regarded as genocide.
May the mass murderers also meet their own fate in a more cruel way.

Amazing Story of Survival: I slept in the bush for 3 days to stay alive � Female corps member

Miss Vivian Chidinma Anumba is one of the lucky corps members who survived the recent Bauchi mayhem, where many young people serving their fatherland were butchered.

The female corps member, who hails from Uzoako community, in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State, read Banking and Finance at Federal Polytechnic, Oko and was serving at Shira Local Government Area, Bauchi State, from where she ran home, like a refugee.

Narrating her ugly experience to Saturday Sun, Chidinma said she slept in the bush for three days, running for her life, as all she had, including her credentials were burnt by hoodlums in Bauchi.

Her experience in Bauchi and alleged treatment by her state government on return are pitiable.

How did the violence start in Bauchi?

Actually, the major problem started after the presidential election on April 16, 2011. From the polling units, they started pursuing us, threatening to kill us if President Goodluck Jonathan won. They nicknamed corps members, PDP or Goodluck. They insisted that if Goodluck won, they would kill us.

On April 17, being Sunday, we received threats also that corps members, especially Christians, would be killed. When the presidential results were being released and Jonathan was winning in 21 states, they started threatening us again. Later, they started burning houses and killing corps members. When trouble got to our arena, in Shira Local Government Area, we started running. They killed some of our colleagues. They cut them into pieces.

How did you escape?

It was survival of the fittest. They started going from house to house, room to room in search of corps members. Even if you were to run into an Hausa man�s house, they would kill you. When we ran into a police station, they came into the police station to kill us. In fact, police station was not safe because they killed some policemen and burnt the place down.
So, we continued running, for three days, until Tuesday, April 19. That was when we were rescued. They had to call SSS people to convey the surviving ones to SSS quarters in Bauchi town; that was where they gathered all surviving corps members and from there, they were taken home by their different state governments.

For us from Anambra State, we found ourselves home here with the help of Imo State Governor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim. Some entered ANIDS bus to convey them from Bauchi to Awka and on the way, some were involved in accidents; some of them are still in the hospital, as we are talking now.

Did you see them kill people?

I know some people that were killed. There was this young man; he was my neighbour and he was to get married by June. He was a batch three corps member. Unfortunately, they killed him. There was another person, who was like our pastor there. They killed him too. There, they isolated Christians; anywhere Christians are is a forgotten land. They see it as a land that is corrupt. So, they burnt all the churches there. The man we saw as pastor came home after the service that day. We prayed in the house. He helped people to safety. In the process of trying to show people the way to escape, they killed him. They were three roommates. They killed two, with the exception of one who came back with us.
Many others were injured; some of them couldn�t even stand; they were still on wheelchairs before we came down to this place. I got pictures of those killed with my phone. The bodies were taken to the mortuary. Most of them are still in mortuaries in Bauchi State. Their people were coming down there to settle with NYSC officials before they will carry the corpses.

Are you saying there was no security at the polling units?

The security they gave us in the polling units did not do anything because all of them are Muslims. They beat me up in my polling unit because there in Bauchi State, they didn�t do election; they would just command you to share the ballot papers among the parties. Even after obeying them, they won�t be satisfied. After the election, they threw us into a truck and commanded us to start counting for CPC. In fact, if not for God�s intervention, we could have been raped.

You said that you slept in the bush while escaping. What happened?

We slept in the bush behind a rock in order to be safe, because they started going from house to house in search of corps members to kill. If you are an Hausa man and they suspect that corps members are in your house, they would search and anyone they saw was dragged out and dealt with.
They burnt all my property; they burnt my documents, but I really thank God that at the end of the day, I was able to escape. As I said earlier, even the police station we ran to for rescue, was burnt. People that were inside, who were not at alert, became victims. But we had to run into the bush, slept there for three days, before we came out. It was then that we heard that they were coming to evacuate us.

How were you evacuated?

I had to fix myself into the Imo State flight. Ohakim had to send a flight to us and we landed in Owerri. He hosted us. He lodged us in different hotels and at the end of the day, he gave each of us N5, 000 for transportation from Owerri to Awka. He took us to the Government House, entertained us and after entertaining us, he lodged us, gave us transport fare. We from Anambra State, we are about 100 plus that followed the flight. We came back to our own Government�s House that day; we don�t even know how the Governor�s Lodge is because they sent us back from the gate. They asked our driver to turn back and packed somewhere. They stopped us at the gate and addressed us. They gave them N1, 000 each after that. He then asked us to come back on Wednesday. Now, on getting to that place, we were ignored. We sat there from morning till afternoon and the thing we heard was that the governor had travelled. One person came and addressed us and said that we should write our names and that if they had any information for us, they would call us.

We learnt that you met with Dr. Chris Ngige. How come?

We were there when we heard that Onwa (Ngige) was around and we decided to come here.

How did your parents react when you returned?

Oh my God! My mum was happy, though until I got home I did not tell her what was happening to me. It was only my brother that I was telling everything, because I knew my mum would have a health crisis if I told her I was in such trouble, even if I was still alive. She would die before I came back.

What are you going to do next?

I am preparing to go for a thanksgiving in church. I didn�t know that I would still be alive till today because, at a point, I had to say my last prayer that if they met me I was dead. They were everywhere, ready to kill. It was God that brought me home without any scratch.

Please mobilize your friends and relatives to sign this petition. I have forwarded the text and the link to every Nigerian in my adress book. Have you? We are half way to the 1000signature mark. I believe we can make it.

A murdered pregnant corps member�s last words

By Jude Atupulazi


May 7, 2011



Agnes Ezennadozie had called her husband, Peter, to alert him of what looked like trouble. �She called me and said �Honey, it�s like a riot is taking place�,� recalled Mr Ezennadozie, barely holding back tears. �I asked her how safe she was and she said they were at a police station. Later, she called to say the hoodlums were surrounding the station and I told her to run from there. As we were talking, I heard a scream and then nothing,� he added.

He called her line repeatedly without reply. Some two hours later, a male voice came on the line to tell him that the owner of the phone was seriously injured. He later learnt that his wife of three months had been taken to the Federal Medical Centre in Bauchi. He prevailed on the hospital staff to take his wife to a particular hospital in downtown Bauchi. From there she was moved to Abuja for further treatment. She died 12 days later.

Good programme gone awry

It was dreamed up as a scheme to engender unity among Nigeria�s youth fresh from the nation�s higher institutions. But the fate of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) currently hangs in the balance as recent events threaten to undermine its continued existence.

Established in 1973 by the Yakubu Gowon administration, the scheme was also aimed at healing the wounds of a 30-month civil war which the nation had survived three years earlier. The scheme offered the fresh graduates the opportunity of serving the country outside of their states of origin. There is no doubt that many would not have known about the different cultures in the country if not for the scheme.

However, in recent times religious and now political crises in parts of the country, especially the north, have turned what was supposed to unite Nigerians into an objectionable venture.

This latter development was poignantly brought to the fore by the senseless killing of many innocent youth corps members in some northern states, especially Bauchi and Kaduna, by gangs of youth protesting the loss of their favoured candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, at the just concluded general elections.

The protesters descended on the hapless corps members who served as ad hoc staff for the nation�s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission. When the dust settled, there was general weeping and anguish by a shocked nation. Many of its youth had been slaughtered like animals in the course of serving their fatherland.

In the midst of all this is the very heart-rending case of Mrs Ezennadozie, who was carrying a six-week old pregnancy after her wedding in February this year. Mrs Ezennadozie, who hailed from Achina in Anambra State, died as a result of the first degree burns she sustained in Bauchi when the hoodlums invaded and set fire to a police station where the corps members had fled to for safety.

Indescribable pain

Mr Ezennadozie wondered what his wife had done to those who murdered her to deserve such a fate. He wondered why Nigerians, especially northerners, had no wish to, in his words, �Stop the rubbish act of killing innocent people because of religion and politics.�

�How can someone just kill an innocent girl? The federal government should stop this act of northerners,� he said. As a solution to that, Mr Ezennadozie is of the opinion that those from the north should serve in the north while their southern counterparts should serve in the south. That way, he said, �if the north wants to kill its own children, it would be their choice.�

While receiving the remains of Mrs Ezennadozie at Government House last Thursday, the state governor, Peter Obi, said, �Today casts a pall of darkness over Anambra State as we receive the corpse of Mrs Ezennadozie who as you know was among the corps members hacked down in their prime during the post-presidential election crisis that engulfed parts of northern Nigeria.� He regretted that the late Agnes Ezennadozie paid the supreme price while answering a call to national service.

�Unfortunately, a programme designed as a veritable instrument for national integration turned disastrous when uninformed youths hiding behind the veil of politics visited violence on fellow Nigerians,� Mr Obi lamented.

He called on the federal government to henceforth assure corps members outside the northern zone of adequate protection or nobody would be willing to serve again. �We will serve the nation but not at the expense of our lives. We must serve the nation but the nation must protect us, if not we will not serve. We must negotiate before you (corpers) get back,� the governor said, noting that he had asked the federal government to ensure that those behind the act do not go free.

He promised that his government would not allow the deceased�s family to walk alone and pointed out that the state government had fully taken over the funeral expenses of the slain corps member.

To scrap or not to scrap

Some who spoke to NEXT after the short reception expressed worry over the incessant killings in the North and called on the federal government to either review the NYSC scheme or scrap it. They echoed the widower�s line that those from the various zones should serve in their zones.

�The NYSC should not be abolished but that corps members should serve in their zones,� said Nkiru Orji, a journalist.

Tony Anyanwu, also a journalist with the Nigerian Television Authority, said that much as he sympathised with the deceased�s family, he would still insist that the scheme should be modified rather than scrapped. He however said that if the country was desirous of keeping the scheme, it must urgently deal with factors causing what he called �the incessant crises� and that offenders should face the law.

For Shadrack Nnanna of the National Orientation Agency, corps members should be allowed to choose where they would prefer to serve in order for them to accept their fate whatever happens. He suggested that, alternatively, graduates should be subjected to military training in lieu of national service and afterwards helped to settle down in society afterwards as is the practice in Egypt.

Given that many parents would not want to give up their children to another horror similar to the post-election violence, the likelihood of the runaway corps members across the nation returning to their host states in the north continues to look bleak as the programme totters on the brink of total rejection by Nigerians.

Posted by TruthBeTold on May 08 2011

NYSC should be optional. If you like it, you go, and if you don't, move on with your life and career. As far back as 1984 when I was posted to Kaduna, I vowed that I would NEVER serve in the north. I refused to go and eventually ended up in Benin. Now my children have graduated and I have told them not to bother with the NYSC because it is a waste of time and a risk to life and property. The last time I was in Kano, I escaped death by a whisker. Any southerner living in the north does so at their own risk

So, this is what "One Nigeria" has turned to?
Since the aim of NYSC in to take people to "other parts" of the country in other to foster integration, Nationhood and Patriotism, posting Corpers to the Geo-Political zone is a complete negation of the NYSC principles.
Since on the other hand, those posted to the NORTH in particular, have become "valueless" in the eyes of their host, THE BEST THING IS TO SCRAP THE PROGRAMME.

Its either "real NYSC" or NOTHING.