Hannatu Musawa, the minister of culture, arts, and the creative economy has renounced a comment that was allegedly made in response to the issue surrounding her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) position.
A statement supposedly made by Ms. Musawa, which was published in the media on Sunday, claimed that doing the national service and holding a ministerial post at the same time did not violate any laws.
However, Ms. Musawa stated that the published statement did not come from her and that she was consequently dissociating herself from the statement’s contents in a statement from the Deputy Director of Press at the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation, Suleiman Haruna.
“A recent work that has been going around has caught the attention of Barrister Hannatu Musa Musawa, The Minister of Art, Culture, and Creative Economy… Regarding the present NYSC debate, the article incorrectly links her to it, according to Mr. Haruna.
The Hon. Minister confirms that she has not made any formal statements about the aforementioned issue and respectfully requests that the public exercise caution when relying on unreliable information.
“For clarity, I wish to state that I have not issued any statement on the current issue,” the minister said.
Background
Three years ago, while Ms. Musawa was being screened by senators for a position for which she had been nominated by then-President Muhammadu Buhari, there was an issue over her NYSC status.
But once the NYSC administration confirmed that Ms. Musawa, who was appointed a minister by President Bola Tinubu on Monday, was still completing her national youth service, the dispute took a fresh turn in recent days.
As a result, her detractors started to demand that she be removed from the ministerial position, arguing that she could not hang on to both.
This newspaper learned through source interviews and document reviews that an NYSC discharge certificate issued in Ms. Musawa’s name in 2003 does indeed exist and is held by the Corps. Authorities, however, are refusing to provide the paperwork because they believe she fled during her service year.
On her part, Ms. Musawa said the NYSC was not diligent and careful enough in its search for her record and that she was not accorded a fair hearing to prove that she did not abscond.