Minister Of Youth Development Says NYSC Will Not Be Cancelled

Solomon Dalong , Minister of Youth, Sports
and Social Development, said on Tuesday
in Lagos that the Federal Government
would sustain the National Youths Service
Corps (NYSC) scheme.
Dalong stated this when he paid an official
visit to the NYSC Orientation Camp at Iyana-
Ipaja, in Lagos State.
He said, ” I will stand for the sustenance of
the scheme and that it should continue to
grow. What we need to do now is
introduce skills acquisition, empowerment;
we need to now repackage the scheme.
At the level of the Federal Government, we
are thinking of after the mandatory one
year service, those who want to learn a
trade, skills acquisition and
entrepreneurship can be retained and be
given more training.
Our graduates are enlightening minds,
whatever you teach them, they will survive
with it. So a grant will be given to them at
the end to start off and train other people.
he said.
Dalong charged the NYSC to install a high
tension illuminating light at the camp, to
ensure adequate security.
“You should have high tension
Illumination at the camp, as soon as
possible. If you have over 2,000 Nigerians
in a place like this, you should have a
perfect illumination due to the present
security challenges in the country. I am
impressed with what I have seen on
ground at the camp; the facilities are good,
I am satisfied,’’ he said.
Dalong also charged the NYSC to renovate
all existing orientation camps in the
country.
He said it had become very important for
the camps to be upgraded to accommodate
the increasing number of graduates that
would be expected for the scheme.
“So as you embark on renovation, put it in
mind that more people will be using the
facilities.
I am saying this because I do not know
when we will get a new orientation camp,
but we are sure that we will have more
students passing out of the tertiary
institutions.
When we started this scheme, we never
planned for what we have now. Nigeria
did not plan to have the number of
graduate we have today, so the whole
concept of NYSC would have started with
permanent structures.
The visionaries of the scheme did not
anticipate that the scheme would live this
long, after the civil war.” the Minister said.
Brig. Gen. Johnson Olawunmi, Director-
General, NYSC, while conducting the
minister round the camp, said it had five
boreholes which served over 200 rooms.
Olawunmi said the budget of the corps was
reduced from N1.7 billion to N227 million
between 2013 and 2015.
He said the corps was facing serious
challenges following the reduction by the
past administration.
“We pay Security about N180 million yearly
to secure all the orientation camps in the
country out of the budget and we are left
with little or nothing to run our
programmes.
We have even reduced the camp to two
batches, because of lack funds.” he added.