By Editorial Board of Punch, Published: Friday, 25 Dec 2009

The brutal and gratuitous murder of a National Youth Service Corps member, Miss Grace Ushang, in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital on September 26, presented the Nigeria Police with a credible opportunity to redeem their parlous crime-busting image and cut down on the ever-lengthening list of unresolved murder cases in the country. The attitude of the police towards the case however seems to portray them as not only unwilling to turn over a new leaf but also incapable of doing so.

Nearly three months after the 25-year-old indigene of Cross River State was reportedly despoiled and dispatched to an early grave, the police are nowhere closer to producing the perpetrators of the crime than they were on the day the incident occurred. On the contrary, there are strong reasons to believe that they are deliberately twisting facts and striving hard to tamper with relevant clues that could throw light on how Ushang met her tragic end.

At a recent public enquiry by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Women Affairs into the death of the NYSC member, lawmakers, human rights groups and medical doctors did not mince words in demanding a fresh autopsy report after rejecting the one presented by the Commissioner of Police, Borno State Command, Mr. Ibrahim Abdu. Condemning the lack of commitment to fishing out the murderers, the Chairperson of the committee, Binta Masi Garba, reportedly asked for Abdu’s removal. “For the CP to conclude that there was no despoil is totally wrong. I have my misgivings and I reject the report completely,” she was quoted as saying.

Ushang reportedly met her untimely death at the hands of bandits who took turns in defiling her for allegedly wearing a pair of khaki trousers, the prescribed uniform for members of the NYSC. She had ventured out of her official quarters in search of food on that fateful day. The alarm bells started ringing when she failed to return after what looked like a reasonable length of time. A search party later stumbled on her dead body where it had been dumped. Rather than produce the killers, the police have allegedly rounded up and detained her colleagues in the NYSC who are now paraded as prime suspects.

It is unfortunate that in a country where there is no official dress code, a group of outlaws can take it upon themselves to enforce a dress code. It is a case of some people taking the law into their own hands; and the law enforcement agencies will be failing in their duty to Nigerians if they allow such people to get away with acts that tend to breach the freedom of Nigerians to dress and live freely in any part of the country.

Ushang’s death, incidentally the third participant in the scheme from Obudu to be gruesomely murdered in Borno State, brings into question the continued relevance of the NYSC scheme when the weak Nigerian state has consistently failed to guarantee the safety of the participants. The case of two corps members murdered in Jos, Plateau State, during the crisis of December last year is still fresh in the memory.

It should also be noted that the failure of the state security apparatus to fish out murderers of Nigerians resident outside their places of birth has continued to encourage a regular recurrence of these heinous crimes that are already posing a threat to national unity. For instance, the killers of Gideon Akaluka in Kano in 1994 and Mrs. Oluwatoyin Oluseesi in 2007 in Gombe are still at large, despite the fact that the crimes were committed in the open glare. Oluseesi, a teacher, was mobbed by students whom she tried to prevent from cheating during an examination, while the killers of Akaluka had paraded the streets with his head held on a spike.

In Ushang’s case, the police have displayed their usual half-hearted approach to cracking murder cases in the country. This is further worsened by the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the NYSC in fishing out and punishing the criminals. It will also amount to missing the point if one fails to point out the failure of the NYSC Director-General, Brig. Gen. Maharazu Tsiga, and the Borno State Governor, Alhaji Modu Sheriff, to protect the lives of those deployed to serve in the scheme. As the chief security officer of the state, Sheriff must produce the killers of Ms. Ushang.

Failure to do so, the NYSC must stop deploying corps members in Borno and any other state that fails to demonstrate adequate capacity to protect the lives of Nigerian youths on national service. The Cross River State Governor, Senator Liyel Imoke, will also be failing in his responsibility to his citizens if he fails to demand justice from his Borno State counterpart.

But for the steadfastness of some National Assembly members and a non-governmental organisation, Coalition for Change, Ushang’s case would probably have gone the way of many others before it - unresolved and forgotten. But their efforts alone may not be able to sustain the struggle for long. Other public-spirited Nigerians must join forces with them to ensure that the killers of Grace Ashang are brought to book.

Gaskiya Magana!

lol. . .they can write stories from today till tomorrow but NYSC isn't going anywhere, it would serve better if they diverted the energy to calls for a total overhaul of the way things are done in nysc but to call for a scrapping. . .they are on a long thing!