Rivers Election Re-Run: NYSC considers a review of Corps Members’ Participation in Future Elections

The National Youth Service Corps has threatened to review the Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, signed with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on the participation of corps members in electoral process.

NYSC Director General, Brig-Gen. Johnson Olawumi, made this revelation when the Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, and INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmud Yakubu, paid a condolence visit to the NYSC in Abuja, over the death of Samuel Okonta, a corps member who was killed by gunmen in Rivers State during the rerun elections.

While promising that the scheme would do everything in its power to bring Okonta’s killers to justice, he confirmed that NYSC had set up a committee to look into the corps member’s killing after which the committee would determine whether or not the MOU would be reviewed.

He said, “I want to use this avenue to call on the Rivers State government and community leaders to do everything humanly possible to bring those who killed this young, innocent man to book. We shall work with relevant agencies to ensure that the perpetrators of this heinous act are fished out and made to face the full wrath of the law.”

Samuel Okonta was one of many corps members whose lives were lost at electoral polls.

According to reports from Vanguard, 11 corps members were killed in Rivers State during the 2011 elections and about 150 others had their limbs cut off in Kaduna State by protesters against the outcome of the polls. Some other corps members also went missing last weekend during the Rivers State elections.