The youths also threatened to mobilise a 22-million-man protest against Akoh, who they accused of defrauding them by misrepresenting the status of the organisation.
Some youths have vowed to drag the Peace Corps National Commandant, Ambassador Dickson Akoh before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over alleged fraudulent activities under his watch.
The youths also threatened to mobilise a 22-million-man protest against Akoh, who they accused of defrauding them by misrepresenting the status of the organisation.
They claimed that millions of youths have been caught up in the web of extortion and exploitation during their bid to join the Peace Corps of Nigeria as they were made to believe they were being recruited into a statutory paramilitary outfit belonging to the government.
In messages shared on the social media groups, the aggrieved peace corps members said they are ready to recover the money they paid to join the organisation, which is N60,000 each.
“We were made to pay N60,000 each as fees before being invited for training. People only get invited after they have made the payment, which forced us to part with the money,” a former member of the Peace Corps of Nigeria told SaharaReporters.
“It is usually after the training that we discover we have been defrauded because that is when we find out that there is no future for us as Peace Corps is not a government organisation, contrary to the impression we were given before joining.
“During training, they keep telling us the Peace Corps of Nigeria bill is before the National Assembly and would soon be signed into law by the President. We now know that the whole thing is a fraud to enrich the national commandant.”
President Muhammadu Buhari had in February 2018 withheld assent to the Peace Corps of Nigeria Bill over security concerns and the additional financial burden it would bring to a government that is already overburdened.
Akoh was arrested by a combined team of police, military and Department of State Services personnel and detained in 2017 for illegally conducting paramilitary training for the youth he conscripted into the Peace Corps of Nigeria.
It was also alleged that the organisation and other similar groups “were acquiring weapons and conducting covert military training in different locations across the country.”
A Nigerian government gazette in 2013 banned the activities of the organisation, which raises posers as to how Akoh is able to continue using it to allegedly extort youths that are desperate for government employment.
He is said to have perfected a strategy of ensuring that successive National Assembly has a Peace Corps of Nigeria Bill before it.
Some officials of the organisation also expressed concerns about how he is personalising the proceeds of the money being made from conscripts.
A source in the Gwarimpa Office of the corps said, “People here are bitter that they work to service Ambassador Akoh’s interest and nothing else. There is a small group that has been collating evidence and building the trail of how the proceeds of money realised from new entrants are re-invested into properties in Abuja, Otukpo, Ogoli his village and Dubai, UAE.
“We are worried that the EFCC would come into the matter any time from now and we are afraid of being caught in the situation he has created for himself and by extension the rest of us, we are really worried.”
One of the organisers of the protest added that the youths would be demanding that anti-corruption agencies investigate Akoh and cause him to refund the money they paid to him.
“We want him to refund our N60,000 because there are petty businesses that some of us can start with this token amount. He should also be tried for doing this to us so that he would be deterred from deceiving other hapless youths that are under pressure to get employed in the future,” one of the organisers explained.