EXPOSED: Immigration Document Shows NYSC DG Is Above Retirement Age

Agency Report

Muhammadu Kaku Fadah
A document from the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has confirmed that the Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig Gen MK Fadah, has gone past the retirement age of 60 years, thereby, he’s long overdue for retirement from service.

Although his date of birth remains something of a mystery, it is alleged that Fadah claims to have been born in 1970.

However, his travelling papers released by the NIS revealed otherwise as they showed that the NYSC DG was born 10 years earlier.

According to his international passport, an e-copy of which was made available to Daily Independent, Gen. Fadah was born on October 10, 1960, and will clock 62 next month.

This means that the NYSC DG has stayed beyond the 60 years mandatory retirement age permitted by the public service rules and other extant laws on conditions of service in the Nigerian Armed Forces.

The papers added that the Brigadier-General‘s birthplace is his hometown of Gushua in Yobe State.

Recall that a group known as the Anti-Corruption Vanguard in August called on President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate and sack Brig Gen Mohammed Fadah, over alleged incompetence and corruption.
The group disclosed this in an open letter to the President signed by its Executive Secretary, Joshua Agbo

Agbo said in August that the action followed the failure of the NYSC to respond to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request on a story by an online newspaper, SaharaReporters and other allegations.

SaharaReporters had detailed how some workers in the agency accused the new NYSC boss of being a stooge to the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan.

Fadah, who is from Yobe State, had taken over from Major-General Shuaibu Ibrahim in May 2022 after his two-year tenure.

Consequently, the group expressed concerns in its open letter to the president that Fadah may have falsified his academic qualifications to get undue advantage to be enlisted into the armed forces.

While the NYSC on its website said the new DG “attended the Kaduna Polytechnic from where he obtained an HND before proceeding to bag a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from the Lagos State University, there is no information on his date of birth or evidence of education posted on the Agency’s website unlike in the case of his predecessors.

Fadah, who was appointed as the 19th NYSC DG in May, once worked as Direct Regular Commission at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji.

Fadah was the Commandant of the Command Secondary School, Kaduna before he was appointed by President Buhari as the DG NYSC.

But his four months in office have been marred by controversies ranging from alleged corruption, incompetence and age falsification.

The Civil Society group had said it “resolved to investigate the controversies over the birth and academic records of the director general as a check on NYSC portal suggest the deliberate omission of key info on Brig Gen M.K Fadah bio. No date of birth, no primary/secondary school attended”.

It added that the “DG is shady on whether or not he participated in the one year of mandatory service to the nation before joining the military; the same NYSC he heads today”.

A top source in the NYSC said Fadah didn’t merit the appointment in the first place as he lacks the requisite academic qualifications and experience.

The insider noted that the NYSC DG enjoys the backing of a senior government official who fast-tracked his promotion and facilitated his appointment.

“We are not surprised by the whole age and academic controversies. You can’t give what you don’t have,” the NYSC staff said.