Banditry: Niger NYSC Unable To Post Corps Members To 11 LGAs

Due to escalating attacks of armed bandits, the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, in Niger State says it was unable to post corps members to no fewer than 11 out of 25 local government areas for their primary assignment in the State.

The Director, National Orientation Agency (NOA) Niger State chapter, Hamza Audu made the disclosure in Minna during the visit of a monitoring team from the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management to the State for the enumeration of pupils and cooks, also known as vendors under the Home Grown School Feeding Programme of the federal government.

The state NOA Director explained that in order not to risk the lives of corps members, the state NYSC decided not to deploy them to 11 local governments that are prone to bandits’ attacks.

He explained, “we are using the locals in concerned schools, who are conversant with their environment in order not to put the lives of NYSC members at risk.”

Also, Hajiya Fatima Bisalla, who led the monitoring team from the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management told journalists that the visit was to enable the Ministry generate data on the beneficiaries of the Programme in the State.

“The federal government wants to know the accurate number of pupils and cooks in each state before we scale up the programme to include more pupils in September.

“The team is satisfied with what it had seen on ground in Niger in connection with the records presented by the state on the school feeding programme,” she stated.

Bisalla further disclosed that the enumeration exercise was being conducted in connection with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

Speaking, the state coordinator of the programme, Bar. Amina Gu’ar noted with satisfaction the quality of food being served to pupils by the vendors in the State.

“Presently, we have 560,000 pupils from 3,032 schools that are benefitting from the scheme in the State. And, we have over 5,000 food vendors serving the pupils across the State”, she added.