Polycarp Sola-Abakaliki
The Resident pastor of the Evangelical Church Winning All, (ECWA), in Abakaliki the Ebonyi State capital, Reverend Emmanuel Okafor has said that the safety and respect for serving corp members should be the priority of their host communities as they are rendering selfless service for the unity, peace, and progress of the Nation.
The Cleric, who stated this while addressing Newsmen at a thanksgiving service that was held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the NYSC, described it as terrible for anyone to attack a serving Corp Member, and urged the people to support them as well as show respect for what they represent.
“NYSC members should be respected, they should be accepted because they are doing vital work in our society.
“The purpose of establishing the scheme is to unify the country after the civil war.
“In times of crises, we should not see them as targets to hunt for, it’s a terrible thing to hurt a copper who is serving the nation.
“My charge to host communities is to respect Corp members at all times because of what they stand for”. Okafor said.
The Cleric further said that Corp members should be given the requisite cooperation and assistance to enable them to render selfless service to benefit the host communities.
He called on the youths to be disciplined and maintain the good virtues they learned from the NYSC and their various institutions to ascend leadership positions in the future.
“We say that the future belongs to the youths, if we are not mentally, spiritually, and physically equipt to handle the social aspects, we will be disappointed by our parents and the institutions that trained us.
“The youths should maintain solid virtues so that we can remember to take up leadership from those that are guiding us today, we should be focused, be godly and study hard and imbibe godly virtues to succeed tomorrow.” The Cleric said.
Speaking with the State coordinator, Mrs. Bamai Mercy, she described the thanksgiving session of the 50th anniversary as a moment to express gratitude to God for all his goodness to the scheme over the years.
“We are celebrating the 50th year of NYSC not because we live it on our own but because we know that God has helped the NYSC, not only because we are 50 years but for the achievements so far.
“God has given us wisdom and knowledge to overcome challenges and the NYSC has continued to be relevant and it will continue to be relevant after 50 years.
She commended the Corp members for initiating personal community development services to their host communities while urging them and members of the staff to be more committed to the course of national development.
“We must be more committed and encourage ourselves, the achievements so far are kind of encouragement for us, during the activities to mark the 50th anniversary we had stakeholders coming to tell us how much we have impacted them.
“The NYSC will always do better, if you are being commended you know that you are on the right track and you will be encouraged to do more“. Bamai said.