On Monday, several posts on social media claimed that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) had begun to pay N44,000 to corps members who had left the scheme.

The arrears payment is to balance up the previous wage corps members received after President Bola Tinubu approved N70,000 as the minimum wage.

Tinubu increased the minimum wage from N30,000 to N70,000 in July. Corps members were also expected to see their monthly wages increase from N33,000 to N77,000.

After many months of delay and reports on how corps members were barely getting by on the previous wage, the youth scheme paid N77,000 to serving corps members in March.

Since then, many corps members who had completed their programme speculated about receiving their arrears from the government.

On Monday at 4:39 pm, Nigeria Stories, a microblogging X page, shared that the payment to corps members had started. The post had garnered about 1.4 million views, 929 comments, 632 comments and 479 bookmarks as at 4 pm on Tuesday.

While some corps members doubted the news and dubbed it as propaganda, some claimed they received the arrears from the federal government.

Abraham Ojogunwa, an ex-corps member, claimed it was true without proof. He wrote, “I think it is true”.

Abibah, another ex-corps member, said that she had received hers. “It is true, thank you so much.”

Timileyin Akinmoyeje, an ex-corps member from the 2024 Batch A, confirmed the payment of the arrears to FIJ at 4:06 pm.

He said he had heard rumours about the scheme clearing up arrears for corps members but did not believe it until he got his.

Another corps member in the 2024 Batch A, who didn’t want to be named, confirmed receiving their arrears around the same time, too.

It is unclear yet whether they will receive arrears for all the months they got N33,000 instead of N77,000 or if this is a one-off payment.