An Abuja-based married woman, Prudence Chimezie Agada, has alleged that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is refusing to release her discharge certificate to her eight years after she completed the mandatory one year programme.
Mrs. Agada said she passed out from service in April 2016 at the Gwagwalada Area Council Secretariat in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
Her husband, Mr Peter Agada, however, told SaharaReporters that NYSC management has withheld her certificate due to the fact that she gave birth to her son just four days before the Passing Out Parade (POP), thereby preventing her from attending the ceremony.
According to him, NYSC never assigned his wife to a PPA for the extension service, rather, the Coordinator of the NYSC, FCT Secretariat wrote a letter titled “Posting On Extension of Service” and dated March 1, 2017, to the AD HRM, NYSC FCT Secretariat, Wuse Zone 5.
Consequent upon the letter, Agada said they have followed up with the NYSC for the release of the certificate for the past eight years but till date, they have refused to release the certificate of national service.
He narrated; “On April 12, 2016, prior to their Passing Out Parade on April 16, 2016, she delivered a baby boy at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH), Gwagwalada.
“Within a month, we went to the NYSC FCT Secretariat with the newborn baby and all the documents from the hospital for the collection of her discharge certificate and we were told to come after three weeks, that the staff were back to the camp as there were new corps members on camp.
“We went back as instructed only for them to tell us that my wife can’t collect her discharge certificate no matter the excuse we have.
“They said that rule states that it is only on camp during the passing out parade that corps members collect their discharge certificates.
“One man advised them against such punishment that it will amount to violation of my wife’s fundamental rights but they claimed that my wife’s file was missing and they started looking for it. Thereafter, they told us the file had been found and returned to the headquarters.
“One of the NYSC staff members, Mrs. Ifeoma and one Mrs. Bamai, who was an Assistant Director at that time vehemently opposed the advice of the man and ensured that my wife didn’t get her discharge certificate for reasons best known to them.
“One of them openly told us to go to hell, that we can’t do anything, and that even if we go to court and get a judgment, it will still amount to nothing.
“She boasted that I don’t know the number of garnishee orders pending against NYSC and asked where the judgment creditors were. She said that we are not the first people and won’t be the last.
“We have been pleading with them so that my wife can use the certificate for whatever purpose that pleases her but they refused, leaving my wife exhausted, psychologically traumatised, depressed, unfulfilled, humiliated, and making her abandon my family and children.
“My wife now abhors the marriage she once cherished, abandoning the children she once loved, including me, her husband whom she has seen as the root cause of her ordeal. She is completely empty and exhausted.
“She now hates our son and me because she said that if she had not gotten married, she would not have been pregnant let alone giving birth to our son when she would have been at the NYSC POP to collect her discharge certificate.
“I am hereby calling on all Nigerians of good conscience, the women community, good-spirited individuals and organisations to come to my wife’s aid and hold the government of Nigeria responsible should anything happen to her.”
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