The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) announced that due to the nation’s deteriorating security, the programme has ceased assigning corps members to states that are considered dangerous.
In an interview with Sunday Politics on Channels Television, Minister of Youth Jamila Ibrahim revealed this.
Remember that concerns were raised about the program’s viability after a number of corps members were kidnapped in various regions of the nation during their one-year mandatory national service.
However, Ibrahim stated that the programme has taken precautions, such as posting NYSC members only to safe states, to keep them secure.”
We have actually stopped posting corps members to the very unsafe states as an immediate intervention of the government and the NYSC as an agency,” the speaker stated.
That is what we have been doing. It is something we have done in the past. To protect their safety, we have not been assigning corps members to certain states,” she continued.
She claims that coordination with other government agencies is necessary to ensure the security of corps members.
“There is a multi-sectoral approach when it comes to security matters,” the minister stated. So, it is not the NYSC alone and the ministry that is involved. We are working with security outlets to ensure corps members are safe.
“We are also working on group transportation strategies for them to ensure that they are transported to and from camps safely and to their destinations.”
The minister stated that in order to better reflect the current state of the country, especially with regard to their allowance, the Federal Government is currently working on reforming the NYSC scheme.
Ibrahim declared, “We are looking at the NYSC’s overall funding when it comes to remuneration.” As everyone knows, we recently announced that the NYSC programme will be reformed. Our desire is for the programme to be more than just a government social initiative.