Insecurity , unpaid allowances of Corps members on election duties, causing some high blood pressure – NYSC DG

*As Reps direct INEC to facilitate the payment of insurance claims to ex-corps members

JONAS EZIEKE, Abuja

The Director-General National Youths Service Corps NYSC Brigadier-General Olakunle Nafiu, has revealed that some staff of the paramilitary organisation are facing health challenges of high blood pressure due to the lingering issues of insecurity and unpaid emoluments of corps members deployed for election duties in Nigeria.

He further stated that there is a need for a review of the memorandum of understanding between the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC and the NYSC on deployment of corps members for general and off-cycle election duties.

The DG made this known in a presentation before the House of Representatives Joint Committee on Electoral Matters and Youth Development on the need to find practical ways of ensuring safety of Corps Members on election duties at the National Assembly on Friday in Abuja.

Represented by a Deputy Director, Olorunsho Omotade, he said that there should be a deliberate policy by the federal and state governments to ensure that the corps members’ deployment for election duties are not molested or assaulted during the exercise nationally

He said that despite all the successes recorded by the use of corps members to conduct elections in Nigeria, their safety and delay in payment of stipends paid as allowances are nothing to write home about for the past eighteen years.

He said that deployment of corps members on election duties is imperative because of their training, exposure and geo-graphical spread adding that they are apolitical and neutral for the conduct of transparent and credible elections in the country

The NYSC DG, however, regretted that lack of motivation and delay in payment of stipends had affected the morale of many corps members deployed for the 2023 general elections, as they were not paid their stipends after the elections.

He revealed that over 300,000 serving corps members were engaged for both the general and off-cycle election in 2023 out of which many of them were assaulted and molested in the course of election duties, yet they were not paid stipends

He further lamented that a paltry N17,500 is the cumulative payment approved by INEC for a serving corps member deployed for election duty in Nigeria which primarily is to provide for logistics and other needs of the corps members.

While calling for an increment of this allowance for the corps members, he urged that the House Committee uses legislative interventions to shift the payment of stipend to the Office of National Security Adviser ONSA.

The Chief Executive Officer of the agency also explained to the Committee that many corps members who participated in the 2023 general elections were not paid their insurance package by insurance companies engaged by INEC

At the hearing Hon.Alex Egbona moved and the House adopted a motion that the House Committee mandates the electoral umpire to prevail on the insurance companies to off-set the payment of insurance claims to former corps members.

The House Committee Chairman, Hon.Adebayo Balogun thereafter ruled that the nation’s electoral umpire should immediately prevail on the insurance companies to complete the payment of the outstanding benefits to the ex-corps members that are beneficiaries of the insurance claims in four weeks.

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