With every passing election cycle comes massive unleashing of physical violence from armed political thugs which, in the past elections, have resulted in several casualties.

Sadly, Nigeria’s elections are not just marred by election-related killings, but even the post-election era often witness some of the most troubling criminal acts of attacks and killing by thugs armed by politicians.

Ironically, these killers usually walk free after they execute their assignments of mass killings and life continues as usual for Nigerians. There is no transparent way of people demanding accountability from their government and, by that way, impunity reigns supreme.

A very disturbing dimension in all of these wars over election outcomes or methodologies, has also been that the ad-hoc staff largely made up of young graduates serving Nigeria for their mandatory year-long service under the NYSC scheme are often the primary targets of these killers and are used as canon fodders.

The ugly truth Is that many of these Corpers have, in the past, paid the supreme price only because they accept their posting to help out with the elections as ad-hoc staff.

In the year 2011, when the current President, Muhammadu Buhari, lost election to President Good luck Jonathan, his (Buhari’s) loyalists went to war, killing, maiming every human being on sight, just as scores of young citizens serving under the NYSC were killed in Bauchi.

A detailed report was done on that post-election violence. But the sad reality is that the NYSC Bauchi Coordinator then spoke tongue-in-cheek, attempting to conceal the fact that corpers were indeed victims of that dastardly crime of mass killings carried out by supporters of Buhari. The then Governor who was once a banker was quoted in the newspapers as saying that the cruel fate meted out to the corpers were their destiny.

Tried as much as this lying Coordinator of NYSC in Bauchi State did to hide the truth about the fatalities recorded by NYSC in the state, the facts and empirical body of evidence became overwhelming.

Nigeria being the largest black democracy in the World, its election usually attracts a variety of observers from all around the World. So the year 2011 post-election violence got huge volumes of reports authored by groups of civil rights activists drawn from the United States of America and Great Britain. Also, local newspaper reports said that about 10 corpers got killed in the Bauchi mayhem.

Human Rights Watch of New York USA reports that: “Deadly election-related and communal violence in northern Nigeria following the April 2011 presidential voting left more than 800 people dead, Human Rights Watch said today. The victims were killed in three days of rioting in 12 northern states. The violence began with widespread protests by supporters of the main opposition candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Muslim from the Congress for Progressive Change, following the re-election of incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the Niger Delta in the south, who was the candidate for the ruling People’s Democratic Party. The protests degenerated into violent riots or sectarian killings in the northern states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara. Relief officials estimate that more than 65,000 people have been displaced.”

On the corpers killed, the American group said: “Bauchi State, rioters targeted members of the National Youth Corps Service, who served as ad-hoc election staff. According to media reports and journalists interviewed by Human Rights Watch, on the afternoon of April 17 in Giade, a rural town in northern Bauchi State, rioters attacked the youth corps members in the town. The youth corps members, who were from southern Nigeria, ran to the local police station to seek refuge, but the rioters stormed the police station. The mob killed the police officer on duty and burned down the police station, the journalists said. They raped two of the female youth corps members then hacked them to death with machetes, along with five male youth corps members. In total, rioters killed ten youth corps members in the state.”

These corpers killed were not covered by any sort of life insurance policy and I am not so sure if the NYSC and INEC have this kind of essential life insurance scheme for the ad-hoc staff who work for them during elections.

It Is for this sort of negligence of statutory obligations by governmental institutions that certain persons think, although wrongly, that the NYSC should either be abolished or made optional.

That sentiment re-echoed during the February 25^th Presidential and National Assembly poll and the March 18^th Gubernatorial and State Assembly poll in 28 states of the Federation out of the 36. Over a dozen corpers suffered life-threatening violence as circulated by video evidence.

Most commentators are in deep shock why, for instance, the whooping sum of nearly N400 billion was released to INEC for the year 2023 election, but not a kobo was spent to purchase life insurance policies for Corpers who are strategic ad-hoc staff of INEC.

Even the DG of NYSC believes that Corpers play a strategic role in conducting national elections. However, the question to ask is why don’t the NYSC and INEC procure life insurance policies for NYSC Corpers during election assignments?

I asked many corpers if INEC gave them life insurance policies before they were drafted as ad-hoc staff for election duties but they denied the existence of such. The interesting thing is that the management of the NYSC is satisfied with the outputs of these corpers who worked recently as ad-hoc staff of INEC. I appeal to the DG of NYSC to press it on INEC to do the needful by getting life insurance policies for all the corpers to be deployed for election-related assignments. This is because it took their Parents so much to train them in those tertiary institutions and some of them are actually the would-be breadwinners of their respective families. So to simply expose them to avoidable violence is heart-rending.

As aforementioned, the Director General of National Youth Service Corps, Brigadier General YD Ahmed, had hailed the selfless and tremendous contributions of Corps Members across the country during the Governorship and State House of Assembly elections. He said their participation in the elections has earned the Scheme another accolade in its giant strides for national unity and socio-economic development of the country.

Nigerians want INEC and NYSC to introduce life insurance for Corpers who are assigned for such national tasks. Such life insurance policies must be obtained from reputable insurance companies for these corpers on election duties. I so submit.

•Emmanuel Onwubiko is head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria and was National Commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria.

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