FOLLOWING the security challenge posed by the Boko Haram sect in both Borno and Yobe states, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), may have resolved to give concessional posting to corps members who were originally posted to the states but may not want to serve there. This, according to investigations, will be after the orientation exercise, which has also been scheduled to hold in other states.While a news release from thedirectorate headquarters of NYSC in Abuja yesterday, indicated that a new date has been fixed for the commencement of the 2011 Batch C orientation course for corps members posted to Borno and Yobe states, a top official of the scheme informedTheGuardian anonymouslythat after the orientation exercise which are billed to hold in Nasarawa and Benue states, the corps members who do not want to return to Borno and Yobe for their primary assignments would be considered for posting to their preferred states. 'But those who will want to go back to Borno and Yobe, either because they are married and their husbands are there can still go back if they want', he said.The news release, signed by the Head of Public Relations Unit, Mrs. Clara Babatunde, had informed that both Borno and Yobe corps members would now begin their mandatory orientation course on December 1 and conclude on December 15.'While Nasarawa state camp at Keffi will host corps members posted to Yobe state, the Benue state camp at Wanune, along Makurdi-Gboko road, will host their Borno state counterparts', the statement read.It would be recalled that as a result of the mayhem that erupted at the end of the April 2011 Presidential elections, which claimed the lives of several Nigerians including 10 corps members in Bauchi state, prospective corps members and their parents have been agitated about the security situation at such flash points. The prospective corps members had once, at the NYSC headquarters,protested their posting to the hot spots. This was during the term of the former Director General of NYSC, Brigadier-General Muharazu Tsiga, who recently retired from service.In the days following the death ofthe 10 corps members, Tsiga had ascribed the felling of the late corps members to the security challenge facing the country, and had advised that it be speedily addressed.Before the felling of the 10 corps members, who were given state burial by the government in their respective states, with the NYSC playing a very prominent role, corps members have been victims of suchincidentsas kidnap. Five of them were reportedly kidnapped in Rivers State in April 2011, while on inspection of one of their community development projects, a school library. They were later rescued. Earlier inOctober 2010, five corps members were reportedly kidnapped from their lodge at Umuogba Community Secondary School in Omuma local government area, also in Rivers state and were later transferred to a hideout in Abia state before they were rescued.Though the concern of prospective corps members and their parents this time around is not that of kidnapping, it is rather out of fear of the activities of the Boko Haram sect which have claimed many lives in northern Nigeria, especially in Borno and Yobe states. It is worthy to note that Boko Haram activities were felt recently in Abuja with the bombing of the UN House, the Police Headquarters and the October 1st 2010 independence day bomb blast. University students in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, also recently had to vacate the school due to the activities of this group.
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