Peace Corps Commandant, Dickson Akoh says the same people who “fought” the Peace Corps bill prior to its passage by the National Assembly advised President Muhammadu Buhari against giving assent to the bill.
Recall that Buhari had on Tuesday, in a letter, cited security concerns as reasons for withholding assent to the bill seeking to establish Peace Corps.
Addressing journalists after a meeting with members of the House of Representatives, the Corps Commandant, Dickson Akoh insisted that the rejection of the bill showed there was “conspiracy against the Nigerian youth”.
Akoh accused the nation’s security agencies of working against the bill.
He said: “The same people that opposed the bill with the same content during the national assembly’s public hearing, took the matter before the president, telling him that instead of voting money for a new establishment, they should use it to boost money for their own activities.
“They had said it is a duplication of their functions but we made an advertorial in some newspapers to show the differences in the functions.
“Whatever they have done has not brought the situation to an end. The national assembly may still take it up.”
Noting that the organisation was in the interest of the vast majority of the youth, Akoh said “from what I am seeing, there is a conspiracy against the youth.”
“Let them (the youth) be jobless and be committing crimes and let these people have more money and jail them. I think that is the conspiracy,” he said.
“We have the tape that immediately after the passage of the bill by the national assembly, it was conspired and sworn to God Almighty to forestall the passage of the bill.
“We have bills that have suffered similar fate and resistance and was later passed. So we have hope that one day, proper attention will be given to the bill.”