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By Lizzy Chirkpi
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), a prominent civil rights advocacy group, has accused the Federal Ministry of Youth Development and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme of failing to pay outstanding arrears of the increased N77,000 monthly allowance to over 600,000 former corps members.
While speaking to Pointblank, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, National Coordinator of HURIWA explained that the corps members, who served in 2024 and passed out before the full implementation of the new allowance, are yet to receive the difference between the old N33,000 and the improved N77,000 monthly stipends, despite repeated assurances from government officials.
The rights group specifically alleges that the government has shortchanged six batches of NYSC corps members who completed their service in 2024, without receiving the improved allowances or their promised backlogs. These batches include:
Batch A Stream 1 (passed out February 2024)
Batch A Stream 2 (passed out April 2024)
Batch B Stream 1 (passed out June 2024)
Batch B Stream 2 (passed out July 2024)
Batch C Stream 1 (passed out October 2024)
Batch C Stream 2 (passed out November 2024)
HURIWA estimates the total number of corps members owed to be around 618,000, assuming approximately 103,000 corps members per batch (103,000 \times 6 = 618,000).
The Federal Government had increased corps members’ allowance from N33,000 to N77,000 in September 2024, in line with the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act 2024. However, despite this announcement and subsequent promises, the new rate only began to be implemented for serving corps members around March 24, 2025.
HURIWA recalled that in March 2025, after several months of delay, the Federal Government had promised to pay the backlog of the new N77,000 monthly allowance, assuring that serving corps members and those who were in the scheme when the increment was announced in September 2024 would receive backdated payments.
The Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, had reiterated this assurance during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today. “You saw the new DG saying that ‘You will get it,’ and they’re asking him a question: ‘What about those that are going out now, are they going to receive it [backlog]?’ He said, ‘We have your details’,” the minister stated.
The Minister had also explained the delay in implementation, attributing it to budgetary issues. “It was not in the budget when the president announced it, and for some agencies and parastatals, you need your salary to be in the budget before it is paid.
“Before anybody can approve anything, you must have a budgetary allocation for it. But the budgetary allocation has been done now. We are done with the process, and it has been approved. It has been signed, and now they can start paying it”, Olawande said in March.
However, HURIWA now accuses the federal ministry and the NYSC hierarchy of failing to deliver on this promise, as hundreds of thousands of corps members who served and passed out in 2024 are yet to receive their improved allowances or the corresponding backlogs from September 2024.
As of May 2025, HURIWA is demanding an explanation from the Minister of Youth Development and the Director-General of the NYSC scheme regarding the continued non-payment of these backlogs.
“A government built on transparency and accountability would have come back to Nigerians through the media of mass communication to offer acceptable and verifiable reasons why both the ministry of youth development and the NYSC management spectacularly failed to keep to the sacred promise of paying these backlogs to corpers who served Nigeria meritoriously and are now in the job market searching for employment opportunities,” he stated.