Brig.-Gen. Shuaibu Ibrahim, the Director-General, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), says the Federal Government had assured the scheme of better support to improve entrepreneurship and skills training for corps members.
Ibrahim said this at the scheme’s 2019 Batch ‘B’ pre-mobilisation workshop, which held at the Nigeria National Merit Awards House, Maitama, in Abuja.
The director-general said that the Federal Government’s support would target improving the number of corps members participating in its Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) Programme.
According to him, the move becomes necessary to increase the number of youths who are less reliant on white collar jobs, are self-sufficient and employers of labour.
The director-general assured that the scheme would continue to ensure the security and safety of all corps members during the service year.
“The Federal Government has given us the assurance that we will receive all the support we need to increase corps members’ participation in the SAED programme.
“This is because we need more youths to be trained in various skill sets in order to be self-sufficient and employers of labour.
“In terms of security, we are always in touch with all security agencies; we ensure corps members everywhere are fully briefed on their security and the numbers of security personnel and organisations near them is distributed to them in case of emergencies.
“We have a policy on ground with respect to posting of corps members. Corps members are not posted to states that have security challenges.
“Corps members are also given the option of serving or not serving in states in the North-East. They choose whether they want to remain in those states or wish to be redeployed.
“This is because we have corps members who willingly and readily choose to serve in those states but any state we notice has security challenges, we do not post corps members there,’’ Ibrahim said.
He reiterated his commitment to achieving his five-point agenda for the scheme, including ensuring that the scheme remained fully technology-driven.
The director-general said that rehabilitation of camp facilities nationwide was the responsibility of state governments.
He said that the scheme would continue to work with states to ensure that facilities are fully functional and adequately provided for corps members at all times.
Ibrahim said that the pre-mobilisation workshop was held to discuss the challenges encountered at the last mobilisation process, and to chart a way forward to address the problems and improve on services.
The FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello, while declaring the pre-mobilisation workshop open, assured the scheme of the support of his administration towards improving facilities at the NYSC camp.
The minister, who was represented by Mrs Safiya Umar, the Secretary, Social Development Secretariat, FCTA, assured that the security and welfare of corps members deployed to the FCT would remain a top priority for the administration.
“I commend the scheme and corps members for their courage, resilience and high sense of responsibility in moving the country forward by participating in the conduct of the 2019 General Elections.’’
The minister said that the selfless service of the young men and women mobilised by the scheme over the years had brought about positive transformations in the education, agriculture and health sectors as well as rural infrastructure.
Mrs Nnenna Ukonu, the NYSC Director, Corps Mobilisation, said earlier that the workshop was held at the beginning of every mobilisation year to review the performance of previous exercise and identify challenges.
Nnenna said that this was done with a view to proffering solutions to the problems in order to achieve a seamless exercise in the future.
The director of corps mobilisation said that though the scheme recorded successes in the last orientation, it observed some lapses and common errors in the process.
“This we intend to address with the critical stakeholders and come up with lasting solutions to the challenges encountered during previous uploads by Corps Producing Institutions (CPI),” Nnenna said.
The theme for the 2019 Batch B pre-mobilisation workshop was, “Achieving Greater Efficiency in the NYSC Mobilisation Process: The Role of Stakeholders’’.
The workshop had in attendance stakeholders and heads of federal agencies including the National Universities Commission (NUC) and National Board for Technical Education (NBTE).
Others are the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and all NYSC deployment and reschedule officers from the 36 states of the Federation, including the FCT. (NAN)
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