Akwa Ibom, Osun Evacuate Indigenes

ABOUT 3,000 members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving in Bauchi State are awaiting evacuation to their states of origin following the continued insecurity in the state.

Quartered in the State Security Services (SSS) Development Centre on Maiduguri Road, for the fourth day, some the corps members said they were not sure how long they would be holed up at the centre.

However, some state governments have taken the responsibility of transporting corps members from their states out of Bauchi.

The Guardian learnt that Osun and Akwa Ibom at the weekend ferried their states’ corps members from Bauchi.

And in Lagos yesterday, some businessmen from the Southeast were frantically making efforts to arrange for chartered flights to evacuate from Bauchi corps members who are from Enugu, Abia, Imo, Ebonyi and Anambra States.

Initial efforts to deploy luxury buses were shelved when the NYSC Director General Brig.-Gen., M. I. Tsiga, reportedly said, “he could not guarantee the safety of the corps members on the long stretch of road from the northern axis of the country.”

However, the leader of the corps members from Anambra State, Mr. Ebuka Okolochukwu, said on telephone yesterday that Tsiga had promised to evacuate the corps members but “he didn’t say the exact date.”

Okolochukwu said that, “after the president’s speech that the state government should take care of us, our state government has promised to send some buses for us. They plan to evacuate us to Gombe and then airlift us to Lagos. But nothing has been heard from them.”

According to him, the threat of violence in Bauchi has reduced “but we are not allowed to go outside the camp.”

He noted that since Akwa Ibom and Osun corps members had left, “security became lax (at the camp), as the gates of the centre are opened and people are trooping in without check. Anything can happen; there are no policemen here, only soldiers, but they are not enough.”

Another corps leader said they didn’t know when their state government would send a team to evacuate them. There is no definite plan. The DG (NYSC) said we should be patient and that he would provide vehicles and escorts. We are waiting.”

On Friday in Bauchi, while condemning the acts of violence, Brig.-Gen Tsiga told the corps members that, “our concern is to ensure your safety by organising a convoy of vehicles that will take you to the nearest safe places to your homes so that you will be reunited with your parents.”

He acknowledged the insecurity on the roads “as the situation was still tense,” but added corps members should join their parents, who were ready to take them out of the camp.

In the interim, a Senior Media Aide to the Akwa Ibom State governor said the government got “reports from corps members in different parts of the country, complaining about their safety and they wanted to come home.”

“The governor responded by sending buses to bring them. I can confirm that the governor provided buses to bring them back,” he said.

The Osun State government also confirmed that the “Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has evacuated 70 out of about 200 marooned corps members, who are indigenes of the state, in crisis-ridden northern states.”

The governor had set up a task force headed by the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mr. Adejare Bello.

According to an official of the state, the returning corps members were welcomed home on the premises of the State House of Assembly in Osogbo by the Speaker, who described the step taken by the Aregbesola administration “as a demonstration of its sustained interest in the welfare of the people irrespective of where they reside within or outside the country.”

The corps members lauded Aregbesola for being the first governor to show concern for marooned corps members in the North.

Many of the corps members form a large part of the ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and their absence may threaten the polls in Bauchi, rescheduled for April 28 due to the post-election violence there.

-Guardian

Posted by admin on Apr 24 2011. Filed under Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, NYSC (National Youth Service Corp), Osun, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry