The Minister for Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, has said that no state government can survive without members of the National Youth Service Corps.
Olawande described the scheme as an important link in the drive for grassroots development across the country.
The minister made the statement at the Stakeholders’ Consultative Forum on the NYSC Reform, held in Abuja on Monday.
In his address, Olawande noted that the NYSC, being one of Nigeria’s oldest institutions at over 50 years, must move with the times, adding that the scheme must be reformed to meet the collective aspirations of the country.
“The NYSC is a platform of unity, national building and national development. It is also an institution that the majority of us here today have benefited from, directly or indirectly, which is why we are all doing our best to make sure that it survives and nothing happens to it.
The National Youth Service Corps remains an important drive for grassroots development across Nigeria.
“The corps members continue to play a crucial role I can tell you for free, and I thank God that the Governors’ Forum is here, there is no government, state government that can survive without corps members; in education, in health, in agric, in sports, in whatever are and this is one of those things that I want the reform to look into very well.
The minister also called for the review of the NYSC posting system “to connect members with their skills area,” noting that corps members often did not get the satisfaction from their mandatory service year.
Meanwhile, the Director General of the NYSC, Brigadier-General Olakunle Nafiu, while addressing concerns and debates around the scheme’s continued relevance, disclosed that the scheme currently mobilises 400,000 graduates annually, with a projection of over 600,000 graduates from 419 institutions from 2026.
The DG also disclosed that the scheme helped some state governments save over N30bn to N40bn annually with the deployment of corps members, noting that the NYSC also deployed over 400 doctors to the FCT, and obliged requests from state governments having a crisis in the education sector.
In her address, the Special Adviser to the President, Policy and Coordination Unit, Hadiza Bala Usman, called for collaborative participation to ensure the success of the proposed reforms, stating that “No reform of this scale can succeed without collaborative participation.”
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