Sworn-in minister still a serving NYSC member –HURIWA claims

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has alleged that the Minister of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa, is still a serving member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

In a recent statement HURIWA claimed that Musawa was posted to Onyilokwu Onyilowa and Co., said to be located at the old Banex Plaza, Abuja.

In the statement titled: “You can’t be a serving NYSC Corper and Minister at the Same Time”, the association added that the minister’s NYSC posting details are FC/23A/505.

It also criticised the leadership of the Senate for clearing Musawa during the ministerial screening exercise when some senators, according to its claim, were aware of her NYSC status.

The statement read in part: “The Nigerian Senate allowed Hannatu Musawa, then ministerial nominee, to ‘bow and go’ despite the controversy surrounding her National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) certificate.”

HURIWA described as “despicable what was a routine with the Godswill Akpabio-led Senate, in which the then ministerial nominee Ms Musawa was asked to ‘take a bow and go’ without being asked any questions about her academic qualifications, including the controversy surrounding her NYSC certificate which, as confirmed to HURIWA by a credible source in the NYSC, that the Minister is actually a Youth corps member.”

The organisation also recalled that in 2020, the Lawan-led Senate rejected Musawa’s nomination as the commissioner to represent PENCOM because she could not present her NYSC certificate.

It stated: “Her failure to submit her National Youth Service (NYSC) certificate was cited as the reason for her rejection. While it is compulsory for every Nigerian graduate to take part in the National Youths Service Corps for one year, graduates who are above 30 years old are exempt from the national service.

”Section 13 of the National Youths Service Corps Act stipulates that any Nigerian graduate below 30 who refuses to make himself/herself available for the compulsory one-year service has committed an offence “and is liable on conviction to a fine of N4, OOO or to imprisonment for a term of two years or both such fine and imprisonment.”