By Charles Olewezi
It is no longer news that the Governor of Niger state, Hon. Mohammed Bago doled out a whopping N200,000 as bonus payment to each of the current members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving in the state. He also donated a truck load of rice for their feeding and promised to commit N5 billion naira for the construction of a befitting permanent NYSC orientation camp in the state. He made all these known last week during the swearing in of the 2024 Batch B Stream of corps members posted to Niger State. Bago had declared, “All corps members serving in Niger State today are entitled to a N200,000 bonus from Niger farms. So each of you has N200,000, I understand you are about 1,600. This is to give you comfort to stay in Niger State.”
However, few days after the huge donations were made from the treasury of the state, many, especially concerned citizens of the state have been wondering why Gov. Bago will spend such an amount (over N400 million on just few people (corps members) and the promise of building a N5 billion orientation camp when there are other pressing needs in the state. For instance, many of the primary and secondary schools are in a sorry state with dilapidated structures begging for repairs and renovation. A civil servant in the state who pleaded anonymity said, “Go and look at our school buildings in all the local government areas and you will weep for the state. I know he is trying in the area of road construction but throwing money about when you have very urgent needs is not the best for the state”
New National Star checks however revealed that Governor Bago may have decided to spend such a huge amount of money on the corps members and their welfare because of the need to make them stay and serve in the state. Many of the corps members posted to some states in the North usually apply for redeployment after their one month orientation due to the prevailing insecurity in the zone. Governor Bago may have played a fast one to avoid mass redeployment of corps members out of the state after their four weeks orientation.
Niger State is one of the states bedeviled by bandits and terrorists in the last few years therenby making it a danger zone for youth corps members. At least, 1,552 individuals were killed in violent attacks in Niger state between January 2022 and June 2023. Within the same period, about 1,044 others were kidnapped.
According to data gathered by The ICIR from the Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a website tracking violent incidents related to political, economic and social grievances directed at the state or other affiliated groups, 1,176 deaths were documented in 90 insecurity-related attacks in 2022. This means that an average of three people were killed daily in Niger State from violent attacks in 2022.
Within the 18 months under review, about 1,044 persons were kidnapped in the state. The kidnapping incidents were reported to have occurred in at least 16 of the 25 local government areas of the state. In 2022, 725 people were abducted. The most affected LGAs, according to the data, are Rafi (189), Lapai (145), and Shiroro (78).
Similarly, in the first and second quarters of 2023, 319 persons were kidnapped in the state, with Munya (127), Shiroro (58), Mashegu (66), and Rafi (59).
In June 2019, NYSC withdrew all Corps members serving in “war zone areas” of Niger State. The then State Coordinator of the NYSC, Mrs Funmilayo Ajayi had in a briefing conveyed the decision to Journalists after the swearing-in ceremony of Corps members at the NYSC orientation camp, in Paiko. She noted then that the safety of lives of corps members are paramount to them and that they cannot risk their lives.
“Officials of the NYSC in the areas affected by the bandits have been mandated to send updates of places with crisis to the state office and we will not post any Corps members to these areas because we cannot afford to lose any of them,” Ajayi had remarked.
It is probably in a bid to assure the corps members of their safety and ensure the thought of redeployment out of the state does not dominate their minds that Governor Bago did the masterstroke with the bonus payment, the first ever in the history of the state. This is also coming in his first interactions with corps members and their officials as governor of Niger State.