Yele Sowore Calls for Immediate Scrapping of NYSC After 19 Corps Members Were Abducted in Imo State
Ademola Busayo 
The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, has called for the immediate suspension and eventual scrapping of the National Youth Service Corps scheme following the abduction of 19 prospective corps members in Imo State.
Sowore said the recent abduction of the youths travelling to their NYSC orientation camps had again exposed the dangers of compelling young Nigerians to travel across an increasingly insecure country for national service.
He made the call in a statement posted on his social media handles on Saturday.
Sowore said it had been his position since 2019, when he first contested the presidency, that the NYSC had outlived its usefulness in its present form.
He argued that young Nigerians should not be compelled to travel long distances to unfamiliar and insecure locations when the country could not guarantee their safety during such journeys.
“The NYSC should be suspended immediately and ultimately scrapped,” Sowore said.
He proposed that, pending the scrapping of the scheme, corps members should be allowed to serve within their states of origin rather than being compelled to travel to other parts of the country.
“No young Nigerian should be forced to travel hundreds of kilometres into unfamiliar and insecure territory simply to fulfil a compulsory national service requirement,” he said.
Sowore also outlined what he described as an alternative under a #Sowore2027 presidency, saying the NYSC would be replaced with a two-year voluntary National Job Corps.
According to him, the proposed programme would focus on employment, skills development, public works, technology, agriculture, healthcare, education and other productive national priorities.
“Young Nigerians need jobs, opportunities, skills and security, not compulsory deployment into danger,” he said.
His comments followed the abduction of 19 prospective corps members who were travelling from Ibadan, Oyo State, to orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The victims were travelling in two buses when gunmen reportedly ambushed them along the Owerri-Onitsha Road in the Umunoha area of Imo State on Thursday.
The Managing Director of Uko Akwa Ibom Motors Nigeria Limited, Isiah Akpan, confirmed the incident and said the abductors had contacted some of the victims’ families.
According to him, the kidnappers demanded N50m for each of the 19 victims, bringing the total ransom demand to N950m.
The victims were travelling in vehicles operated by his company and had been deployed to orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
Akpan said the two buses left Bodija/Samonda Park in Ibadan on Wednesday but encountered heavy traffic around Benin City, Edo State.
He said the vehicles later reached Onitsha, Anambra State, late that day but could not continue the journey because of the condition of the road.
The drivers and passengers subsequently spent the night in Oba, Anambra State, before resuming the journey at about 5am on Thursday.
According to Akpan, the buses had barely entered Imo State when the gunmen emerged from a nearby bush and blocked their movement.
“They blocked the two vehicles and took 19 passengers, all corps members, into the bush,” he said.
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