IN SHORT: While the NYSC has urged corps members to prioritise their safety when travelling between states, it has not advised them to prepare ransom payments for certain roads.
Has Nigeria's National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) warned corps members travelling on major roads to alert family and friends so someone can be ready to manage ransom payments if they are kidnapped?
That’s the claim circulating in what appears to be a screenshot of an NYSC document.
The message reads: “When travelling in high risks roads such as Abuja- Kaduna, Abuja-Lokoja-Okene or Aba- Port-Harcourt roads, then alert your family members, friends and colleagues in order to have someone on hand to pay off the ransom that could be demanded.”
The NYSC is a compulsory year-long programme for Nigerian graduates aged 30 and under, with participants assigned to different states through a random posting system.
The standard NYSC schedule is March to May for batch A, July to September for batch B and October to December for batch C. Each batch has two streams.
Corps members were travelling to their assigned postings around the time of publication. On 11 November 2025, the Nigerian military saved 74 corps members from what was described as a suspected “Boko Haram/ISWAP” kidnapping attempt on the Buratai-Kamuya road in Borno state.
Islamic State West Africa Province, or Iswap, is an Islamic militant group whose operations span north-eastern Nigeria, the southern Lake Chad Basin, and border regions with Niger and Cameroon.
Boko Haram is a terrorist Islamist movement whose violent operations have affected several areas in northern Nigeria.
The screenshot has also appeared here, here and here.
The highways between Abuja and Kaduna, Abuja-Lokoja-Okene and Aba-Port Harcourt are cited as some of the country’s most dangerous. But did the NYSC really send out this warning to its members?
‘Not an official NYSC publication’
Such a message could fuel fear among corps members and their families, almost as if telling them to expect to be kidnapped.
But on 20 November, the NYSC posted on its official X page, asking its members to ignore the supposed warning.
“Management … wishes to make it clear that the document being circulated is not an official NYSC publication and does not represent the Scheme's policy regarding staff and corps members’ security; as such, it should be ignored,” the X post read.
The misleading screenshot was also posted here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
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