By Nengu GREEN
The Minister of Arts and Culture, Hannatu Musawa, currently serving as corps member, has dismissed claims that she was ineligible to have been appointed by President Bola Tinubu as minister as she was not in breach of any law.
Musawa it emerged is presently serving as a corps member of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, in Abuja.
Contrary to the position of the NYSC that she was in breach of the corps’ Establishment Act, the embattled minister said there was nothing as such in the 1999 Constitution of the NYSC Act.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, stirred the hornet’s nest, last Thursday, when it alleged that Ms. Musawa was a serving member of the NYSC.
A statement by HURIWA disclosed Musawa dumped her NYSC scheme in Ebonyi state, many years back, a claim she confirmed on Sunday, but attributing it to “family issues.”
However, her latest position contradicts her claim in 2020 when former President Muhammadu Buhari nominated her for appointment as the national commissioner representing Nigeria’s northwest geopolitical zone on the board of the National Pension Commission, PENCOM.
At that time, Ms Musawa wrote the NYSC through its Kaduna State coordinator requesting the replacement of her NYSC certificate.
According to her, the NYSC certificate was part of the documents that got burnt in an inferno that razed her Asokoro residence in 2019, a Premium Time investigation shows.
“Last year, on Saturday, 14th September 2019, at approximately 5:52 pm, a fire broke out in my house at No 15, Justice Lawal Uwais Street, Asokoro, Abuja. Many of my documents were lost in the fire, including which was my NYSC certificate,” she wrote in the letter dated 30 September 2020. “Therefore, I am writing to apply for the replacement of my NYSC Certificate that was lost in the fire incident.”
The Kaduna State NYSC searched for Ms Musawa’s records in its certificate issuance registers but did not find any matching information. The State Coordinator, Isa Wana, therefore, forwarded Ms Musawa’s request to the Corps Certification Department at the NYSC headquarters in Abuja.
“Her details could not be found in any of our certificate issuance registers of 2001, 2002 and 2003. She could not also remember her state code number and place of primary assignment for ease of further investigation,” Mr Wana wrote in a letter dated 7 October 2020 to the NYSC certificate department.
Days after Mr Wana’s letter to the NYSC headquarters, the corps certification department found Ms Musawa’s NYSC certificate, indicating that she never collected the certificate and that it did not get burnt in her home.
But on Sunday, August 27, 2023, Musawa in a statement she personally claimed that: “It is true I am currently on the NYSC national service which I began 8 months ago as a matter of duty and devotion to my country, having been unable to complete the scheme since I was first mobilised in 2001. I started the mandatory national service as a Corp member (sic) deployed to Akwa-Ibom State (pls confirm state) in 2001 upon the completion of my university education. I could not complete the service same year after my redeployment to Kaduna State due to family obligations.”
She further argued that, “It must be said that there is no law of Nigeria or any part of the our constitution and NYSC Act that states that a serving Corp member cannot be appointed by the President of Nigeria or any other appointing authority into political positions. Equally, no part of our existing laws and NYSC Act says that a corp member must finish service before he/she can be appointed into political office. There is no legal and constitutional limitations whatsoever. I have not broken any law of Nigeria.
“In fact, in a decided case before a Federal High Court Abuja in 2021, Justice Taiwo Taiwo ruled that the Constitution of Nigeria, which is the grundnorm, does not require anyone to even present a first-degree certificate or any other certificate, including the NYSC certificate to be appointed a Minister in Nigeria.”
However, a human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana SAN condemned Musawa’s appointment, stating that a serving youth corps member is not competent to be a minister in Nigeria.
Falana argued that any person who did not participate in the national youth service is not qualified to be a member of the House of Representatives, adding that the Constitution appears to have set the same standard for those to be appointed as ministers.
He submitted that Section 147(6) of the Constitution states that no person shall be appointed as a Minister of the Government of the Federation unless he is qualified for election as a member of the House of Representatives.
