THE National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has lied about warning corps members to have their ransoms ready in the event of being kidnapped along ‘high risk roads’ in Nigeria.
In a statement released across its social media handles on Friday, the management of the scheme had denied reports that it encouraged payment of ransoms to kidnappers, describing them as fake.
“Management wishes to emphatically state that the clause quoted is not embedded in NYSC Security Tips pamphlet which was put together by a highly respected retired security expert,” it read.
However, a pamphlet titled: ‘Security Awareness and Education Handbook for Corps Members and Staff’ given to corps members by the scheme was obtained by The ICIR from a serving corps member (Batch B, 2020).
Page 57 of the book reads:
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“When travelling in high risk roads such as Abuja-Kaduna, Abuja-Lokoja-Okene or Aba- Port-Harcourt roads, then alert your family members, friends and colleagues in order to have someone on hand to pay off the ransom that could be demanded,”
This contradicts the NYSC press statement denying the specific security advice.
This was written as a tip for corps members “if they are unfortunate to be kidnapped or taken hostage.”
The NYSC had urged members of the public to clarify issues with the organisation in its statement.
However, efforts by The ICIR to contact the Director of Human Resources Management of the scheme on the conflicting information yielded no results as he did not respond to calls and text messages at the time of filing this report.
