Seventeen fake members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), have been arrested by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
They were picked up at the NYSC Orientation Camp at Kubwa, Abuja, on Thursday evening while they were posing and taking pictures outside the camp during the passing-out ceremony.
In a statement made available, the commission said its operatives stormed the camp based on
intelligence reports and arrested the suspects comprising eight females and nine males.
It said preliminary investigation revealed that 15 of the suspects claimed to have enrolled in
degree courses run by consultancy services in the University of Calabar (6), University of Jos (6), Ebonyi State University (1), Federal
University of Technology, Owerri (1) and Crown Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti (1).
One of the fake corps members, the commission noted, never attended any university, but said she was desirous of getting a discharge certificate. Another suspect, a young man, impersonated his sister, a genuine corps member who was receiving
medical treatment abroad, in order to collect her discharge certificate.
At various public fora, the ICPC chairman, Mr Ekpo Nta, has warned parents, guardians and young students seeking admission into universities and other tertiary institutions of learning to ensure that their proposed courses were approved by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other regulatory bodies.
This brings to 26, the total number of fake corps members arrested by ICPC this year as nine others were arrested in May. Similarly, the Department of State Security had on September 19, 2013 paraded a fake NYSC syndicate in Abuja.
The commission warned employers, parents and guardians to confirm from the NYSC if they were suspicious of any person submitting call-up letters, posting letters, discharged and exemption certificates.
