The Director General, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig. Gen. Dogara Ahmed, has observed that poor quality graduates, corps members relocation racketeering, inadequate facilities, wrong submission of graduates’ data, among others are affecting the scheme.
The NYSC DG said this while Delivering a lecture titled ‘Harnessing the Potential of the Nigerian Youths for National Unity and Development’ at the 5th convocation lecture of the Edo State University, Uzairue, on Friday.
He explained that the service mobilized an average of 350,000 corps members annually for the promotion of national unity and development.
Represented by the NYSC Director, South South Zone, Ladan Baba, the DG noted that despite the scheme’s numerous achievements, it is still faced with some challenges.
According to him, the challenges include “inadequacy of orientation camp facilities, poor infrastructure, submission of wrong data of graduates, poor quality graduates being presented for mobilization and deployment as well as corps members relocation racketeering among others”.
He enjoined the state governments to live up to their statutory responsibilities to the scheme in the provision, maintenance and upgrading of camp facilities in their domains.
The NYSC, he said, had contributed to the development of education with corps members serving as teachers in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.
He added that they constituted the major manpower especially in the rural communities.
According to him, corp members are involved in the areas of health sector, agriculture, NYSC ventures, general elections, national census, skill acquisition and entrepreneurship developments.
He explained that the scheme was established as a deliberate public policy to ensure the realization of the government’s post-war strategy of Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation (RRR).
