The 2017 Batch B, Stream 1 and 2 of the National Youth Service Corps members have accused Nasarawa State officials of the NYSC of diverting their allowances amounting to N98m.
The corps members made the allegation on an online platform, ‘Nairaland’, stating that the NYSC, in connivance with the Nasarawa State Ministry of Education officials embezzled their allowances.
A corps member, Felicity (surname withheld), stated that the state government had not paid the youths for the last 10 months.
She said, “Nobody has paid us a kobo. The allowance the state government pay is not much but it goes a long way to show how much they appreciate our sacrifice to the country.
“It is sad that we are not enjoying the benefits that other corps members enjoy in other states.”
But the state coordinator of the NYSC, Mrs. Zainab Isah, debunked the allegation that NYSC officials connived with state government officials to embezzle the corps members N98m allowance.
Isah said the NYSC was working hard to ensure that the youths get their allowances from the state government as soon as possible.
But when contacted, the Nasarawa State Commissioner for Education, Mr. Aliyu Tijani, insisted that the government had paid the allowances of all the corps members whose names were submitted to his ministry.
He said the NYSC state coordinator forwarded names of corps members who were being owed arrears of allowances to the tune of N98m which he said the government could not pay.
“How did the management of the NYSC come about the N98m arrears of allowances? I can’t pay what I don’t know,” he said.