Barely one week after Finance minister Kemi Adeosun resigned from office over procurement of a fake NYSC certificate, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, it has been revealed, did not participate in the NYSC scheme despite graduating from the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) at age 25, according to a report in PT, an online daily publication.
Months of discreet checks at the NYSC headquarters by the publication showed that Shittu did not present himself for service after graduation and is yet to do so till date.
Contacted Tuesday, Mr. Shittu admitted that he did not serve but claimed he thought his first political post after graduation could suffice as national service, a claim lawyers and NYSC insiders consider as ludicrous and untenable.
Skipping the compulsory national service is an offence under the NYSC law, punishable with up to 12 months imprisonment.
Employers are mandated by law to always request NYSC certificate of national service from employees as part of the conditions for hiring.
Mr. Shittu, born on March 23, 1953, studied law at Ife, graduating in 1978. He proceeded to the Nigerian Law School, Lagos, qualifying as a lawyer in 1979.
Having earned a bachelors degree at the age of 25, Section 2 of the NYSC Act expects Mr. Shittu to have participated in the year-long national service.
Rather than enlist in the national service, Mr. Shittu went into politics after graduation, and was, in 1979, elected member of the Oyo State House of Assembly.
The minister said he believed that having been elected lawmaker, he needed not participate in the national service.
He said he deliberatively skipped the NYSC scheme because he was convinced that his membership of the state assembly was itself a “service”.
“The constitution provides for the qualification needed for state assembly members, NYSC is not there,” Mr. Shittu said. “I didn’t need it to become a member of the state assembly, and that is already a service,” he said.
Section 2, subsection 1 of the Act makes it obligatory for “every Nigerian” who graduate at the end of academic year 1972-73 and subsequent years, “to make himself available for service for a continuous period of one year from the date specified in the call-up instrument served upon him”.
Source PT