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Pro-Democracy and civil rights advocacy group- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has decried a situation whereby the Nigerian Senate allowed Hannatu Musawa, then ministerial nominee, to ‘bow and go’ despite the controversy surrounding her National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) certificate.
This is just as HURIWA alleged that the inaugurated Minister of Arts is actually a serving member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) somewhere in Wuse 2 Abuja in the year 2023.
Musawa was the last ministerial nominee to show up for Senate’s screening during penultimate Tuesday’s plenary session of the Nigerian Senate.
HURIWA described as despicable what was a routine with the Godswill Akpabio-led Senate, in which the then ministerial nominee Ms. Musawa was asked to “take a bow and go” without being asked any questions about her academic qualifications, including the controversy surrounding her NYSC certificate.
The group claimed that a credible source in the NYSC confirmed that the Minister was actually a Youth Corps member with the following posting details thus: FC/23A/505 and posted to Onyilokwu Onyilowa and company, suite number undisclosed purposely (paint house )old Banex plaza.
HURIWA recalled that in 2020, the Ahmed Lawan led 9th session of the Senate rejected Musawa’s nomination by former President Muhammadu Buhari as the Commissioner representing the North West at the National Pension Commission (PENCOM).
Her failure to submit her National Youth Service (NYSC) certificate was cited as reason for her rejection.
While it is compulsory for every Nigerian graduate to take part in the National Youths Service Corps for one year, graduates who are above 30 years are exempted from the national service.
Section 13 of the National Youths Service Corps Act stipulates that any Nigerian graduate below 30 who refuses to make himself/herself available for the compulsory one-year service has committed an offence “and liable on conviction to a fine of N4,OOO or to imprisonment for a term of two years or to both such fine and imprisonment.”
HURIWA recalled too that a former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, was forced to resign from President Buhari’s government after an online newspaper reported that she forged the NYSC exemption certificate used in securing her appointment as minister.
HURIWA which also condemned Musawa for her alleged display of illegality by spreading crispy N1,000 notes to some local Hausa musicians at an event in which she was reportedly being celebrated over her appointment as minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria just as the Rights group has asked the Central Bank of Nigeria to order her investigation and possible arrest and prosecution for breaching the extant law which prohibits such abuses of the National currency of Nigeria.
HURIWA has also challenged the National Youth Service Corps to compel the minister of Arts to choose between completing her engagement as a corper under the NYSC national service scheme and then bag her NYSC CERTIFICATE or to disengage from being a Youth corper and then focus on her new task as a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria just as HURIWA wondered why the correct status of Musawa wasnt made known to the members of the public before the Senate sensationally failed to screen her as it should.
HURIWA wonders the kind of scrutiny being conducted by the Department of State Services so much so that it wasn’t disclosed that the minister is actually a Youth corper.
The Rights group alleged that years back, Musawa abandoned her NYSC in Ebonyi State but later showed interest to complete it in which she was mobilised this year and posted to a law firm in Abuja where she is as a corper before President Tinubu picked her as a ministerial nominee, she was confirmed by Senate without proper screening and sworn in by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as minister of Arts.