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32 Lagos corps members bag extension of service
By Kofoworola Belo-Osagie
Thirty-two members of the 2020 Batch B National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) posted to Lagos have had their service year extended for various offenses.
Speaking at the low key Passing Out Parade (POP) at Ikeja Local Government Area secretariat on Thursday, the Lagos State NYSC Coordinator, Mr. Eddy Megwa said 28 of them would spend some months more as punishment while the remaining four would repeat their service for a whole year for absconding.
“We have a total number of 32 of them they’re going to have their services and extended. Some will repeat and some will have service extension of one month, two months, three months according to the degree of offences they committed. for those of them that absconded they’re going to repeat their service here and we were not going to have them do it in Lagos. They going to be posted to other states of the federation he could be in the North it could be in the east but not in this geopolitical zone,” he said
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Conversely, the State Coordinator said one of the corps member; Joshua Timilehin Adegbite would be honoured with the State award of excellence for mounting various programmes to fight the COVID-19.
Commenting on the low-key POP, Megwa said the NYSC could not organise the traditional POP ceremony for the 5,720 corps members passing out because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead the corps members collected their certificates in the 20 LGAs.
“The exercise we are doing all government is the same thing going on or local governments in the state. We are doing it low key because of the pandemic. We cannot do it in the usual NYSC ceremonial way because of the high number,” he said.
Addressing some of the corps members in Ikeja, Megwa urged them to go into the larger society with the scheme’s philosophy of one Nigeria.
“Think of what you can continue to do to hold on to the ideals of the NYSC. Do not see yourself as Igbo or Yoruba but as Nigerian. As you go out to the larger society, sing the song of unity,” he said.
Megwa also warned the corps members to adhere to COVID-19 protocols wherever they go and not join those who say the virus was not real.
One of the corps members, Ruth Nwachukwu said she had a good service year despite the disruption caused by COVID-19.
