The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has banned Benue State University and the University of Agriculture, Makurdi, from sending their students for the mandatory one-year national service.
The Tide source gathered that the scheme placed a two-year ban on both schools following an alleged discovery of negligence and evidence of age manipulation.
However, in reaction, the Vice Chancellor of the Benue State University, Professor Moses Kembe, during a meeting with the Scheme pleaded for leniency.
Kembe had in the meeting which ended in a deadlock, maintained that the university management was not involved in age manipulation. He explained that the age limits were manipulated by the students themselves.
Kembe’s appeal was not taken as NYSC believes the only available option is to punish the universities allegedly involved in the act.
Findings by showed that graduates of the affected Universities were denied access to the NYSC registration portal.
One of the affected graduates, Issac Mbanefo, while calling on the scheme to lift the ban and punish only the culprits involved, told our correspondent that it was wrong for the NYSC to victimize innocent students for an offence committed by a few.
He said, “How do you correct an offence by placing a ban on innocent students? What do you want them to do at home for two years? In a country where you cannot get a decent job without NYSC, do you expect our parents to continue feeding us?”
Another graduate, identified as Matthew Eboh said, “Sometimes, I feel NYSC does not understand the plight of the common Nigerian. How logical is it to place a ban that will affect innocent students for two years? Why don’t they ban the suspected students instead of the whole school? I doubt if they thought of this decision.”