SOME Corps members serving in Aniocah South Local Government Area have called on President Bola Tinubu to implement the new N70, 000 monthly stipends for Corps members.
Those who spoke to our correspondent in Ogwashi-Uku lamented that the delay in implementing the new allowance is impacting on their survival. Wondering how long it will take to give effect to the new allowance, they argued that the scheme might as well be cancelled if the federal government can no longer sustain their pay. A corper from Kaduna and posted to Delta State, Amina Bako hinted that the service under the current N33,000 they are receiving as monthly stipend has become a “curse” to them. “Sometimes I wonder if these so-called leaders have any conscience at all. How can you pay someone N33,000 under the current economic quagmire and expect the person to survive on it for a whole month?
“Now, look at it this way, from the miserable N33,000, I had to rent a one room apartment and I know how much I pay every month for it. Now, the balance of N25,000, is what I am expected to survive on for the remaining period of the month. “In most cases, I rely on my parents who themselves are civil servants to help augment my feeding allowance for the month, whereas we are supposed to be receiving something higher than the N33,000. “We were expecting that immediately the Federal Government implemented the new minimum wage, corps members will begin to earn it, but that is far from it. “We don’t know what the Director General of the scheme is even doing about it. The simple truth is that, we corps members are suffering. The federal government should implement the N70,000 allowance for us or cancel the one-year mandatory service, after all, it should nit be by force”, she lamented.
Another youth corper, who gave his name as Sunday Adegoke from Lagos State, said he was regretting applying for the scheme. “The government came up with economic policies that are having negative effect on the masses and abandoned youth corpers to suffer. “I was posted from Lagos State to Delta, I don’t know anybody here and where I am serving, they don’t have a lodge for us. I had to rent a room for myself. I pay as much as N6,500 for the room out of the N33,000 the federal government is paying us.
“On a monthly basis, I live like a beggar trying to fend for myself. Is it not wickedness? Immediately the new minimum wage was implemented, we had high hopes that ours would be next. But low and behold, till date we have not heard anything nor seen anything. “We are still earning the N33,000 under the current difficulty Nigerians are going through. For me, the simple solution to the whole issue is, if the federal government cannot implement the new allowance, it is better to close the scheme.
“You can’t subject young men and women to a terrible and harsh conditions all in the name of service to their country and tell us to endure hunger and wait for a better tomorrow. “What kind of policy is that? That corpers should suffer hunger today for a better tomorrow? Those in power, are they suffering hunger and waiting for a better tomorrow as they are telling other Nigerians to do?
