There is an ongoing uproar on social media against organizations (both private and public) that hire the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members as associates and do not pay them at all or do not pay them well. There is a strong demand that such organizations should at least pay the corp members in their employ the minimum wage.
This online protest, I can say started from an X (twitter) user posting that his primary place of assignment (PPA) pays him a meagre sum of N2000 as a monthly salary and he shared the receipt of payment for the month of January which was N2000.
The million-dollar question is, are organizations that hire corp members statutorily obligated to pay them?
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The payment of “corpers” as we all know, does come directly from the government and legally speaking, there is nowhere it is provided in any statute that places Nysc members attached for their “PPA” should pay them at the end of the month.
What the NYSC act (cited as The national youth service corps act cap n84 lfn, 2004) provided in section 18 is that organizations should provide accommodation and means of transportation for the corpers in their employ and if there is no accommodation and means of transportation available, such organization should pay the corper 250 naira as an allowance for accommodation monthly and 150 naira as an allowance for transportation monthly.
Here are the full provisions of section 18 of the NYSC Act which provided for the statutory requirements of employers to the Nysc associates.
- 18: “An employer of corps members shall provide the following, that is (a) basic accommodation and where it is not available, pay the minimum sum of N250 per month in lieu of accommodation;
- all welfare facilities normally provided for the regular staff including Medical Service
- transport or where it is not available, pay the minimum sum of Nl50 per month in lieu of transport”.
Therefore, by statutory implication, employers are not statutorily obliged to pay their Nysc associates, it is a matter of personal volition that an employer can choose to pay an Nysc associate. No doubt that these laws are long due for amendments as they were passed in the 70s and have been extant till date when N250 cannot buy you a cup of rice.
I for one no longer see the need for this mandatory one-year youth service and I have never failed to call for it to be scrapped whenever I get the opportunity, especially in my previous essays but if the government feel that the youth service corps should still be kept in operation then laws should be amended so that at least the Nysc associates should be paid, not just be paid, but be paid properly or at least paid they should be paid the minimum wage and be treated as workers (properly so called) and every rights and benefits that accrue to a Nigerian worker as provided in the labour act and other relevant statutes should be accruable to Nysc associates including right to fair wages/allowances, right to a paid leave, right to health benefits etc.
On the other hand, organizations who apply/request for Nysc associates or accept Nysc associates should also be willing and eager to pay them. If you cannot afford to pay them, then you should not request them or accept them. Do not use corpers that you do not pay to boost your staff strength, that is wickedness, to say the least; even the holy book mandated that “a labourer deserves to be paid”.
