The management of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has confirmed that Nigeria’s minister of art, culture and creative economy Hannatu Musawa is a serving corps member.
This comes after a civil society organisation, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), claimed Musawa had yet to complete her one-year mandatory service.
HURIWA said in a statement on Thursday that the minister’s primary assignment is a law firm in Abuja.
The rights group asked the management of the NYSC to compel Musawa to focus on her national youth service or the ministerial appointment.
“HURIWA wondered why the correct status of Musawa wasn’t made known to the members of the public before the senate sensationally failed to screen her as it should,” the statement reads.
“HURIWA wonders about 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.”
Director of press and public relations at the NYSC headquarters Eddy Megwa told TheCable on Thursday that the minister is a corps member.
“Yes she is a serving corp member,” he wrote.
HURIWA had alleged that years back, Musawa abandoned her NYSC in Ebonyi state but later showed interest in completing it.
The organisation said the minister was mobilised this year and got posted to a law firm in Abuja before President Bola Tinubu picked her as a nominee.
“She was confirmed by the senate without proper screening and sworn in by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as minister of arts,” HURIWA further alleged.
In September 2020, former President Muhammadu Buhari nominated Musawa as a national commissioner representing the north-west geopolitical zone on the National Pension Commission board.
But the Senate in October of the same year rejected her nomination over a report from the committee on establishment and public service matters that Musawa failed to provide her NYSC certificate or exemption letter.
An NYSC certificate or exemption letter is a mandatory requirement for those seeking public offices on the basis of election or appointment.
