The spokesperson for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Eddy Megwa, has said the Minister of Arts and Culture, Hannatu Musawa, is breaking the law by serving as a minister while still undergoing her mandatory one-year youth service.
Megwa confirmed that Musawa has been serving for the past eight months in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The NYSC spokesman, in a chat with Daily Trust, said, “According to the NYSC Act, no corps member can take a government job until they complete the one-year service.”
He added that Musawa had initially been assigned to Ebonyi State in 2001 for her youth service but moved to Kaduna State, where she “absconded and didn’t complete the program.”
Similarly, Femi Falana (SAN) said it was a violation of the law for anybody to be still serving in the NYSC and accept a ministerial appointment.
In a statement titled: “A Youth Corps Member is not Competent to be a Minister in Nigeria”, Falana said by virtue of Section 2 of the NYSC Act, every citizen who graduated from any tertiary institution in and outside Nigeria and was not 30 years old shall be mobilised for the one-year compulsory national youth service, while any person above 30 was not eligible to participate in the service.
Also speaking, a legal expert, Abeny Mohammed, in his reaction to the development, said Musawa’s action is a “breach of the NYSC Act,” which requires completion of the service or an exemption certificate for legal employment.
Mohammed said, “The situation we have at hand is that this person is still serving as a copper, and she has been appointed a minister. It shows the inconsistency in our policies and disregard for our laws.”
