The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has advised Nigerians seeking the scrap of the scheme not to be unnecessarily emotional.
At a Unity Walk organised to mark the 50th anniversary of the scheme in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, the Director for South West Area Office, Oluwole Julius Amusan said scraping the scheme is not the best for Nigeria.
Amusan, who stood in for the NYSC Director General, Brigadier General Yushau Dogara Ahmed (rtd.), reminded Nigerians that in the 50 years of the existence of the NYSC, a lot has been achieved.
According to him, “there may be issues in the past, the challenges the scheme is facing are not enough to call for its scrapping.
“NYSC has done this nation a lot of good. The NYSC is felt in all the 774 local governments in Nigeria.
“Calling for the scrapping is not the best thing anybody can talk of now.
“You will agree that NYSC has made giant strides in the last 50 years.
“When you look back from 1973 when this scheme came into being, areas like education, health care delivery, social service campaigns, national programmes, NYSC has made a lot of impacts in those areas”.
Amusan noted that NYSC has met the expectations of its founding fathers.
“When you are talking of fostering national unity, through this scheme, inter-ethnic marriages have occurred, we have seen mobility of labour, corpers being retained in their states of service, many corpers have established their own businesses in the various states where they are posted.”
Amusan, however, noted that the challenges of the NYSC are the same with any other organisation.
“The major problem is the issue of finance that has not been adequate to meet all the needs but kudos need to be given to the government for their inputs in the last 50 years.
“They have been meeting expectations but there is still a need for improvement in the area of funding.”
On his part, the state coordinator, Agbor Ndoma Obim said that activists lined up for the anniversary included a unity walk.
He added that on May 17, other activities for the anniversary would commence.
“We are going to have lectures, symposia and other activities in the area of project commissioning that have been executed by NYSC members.
“On Friday, there will be a Juma’at service. The week-long activities would end with a church service on Sunday, 21st May 2023″.
He advised youths to be disciplined and listen attentively to the voice of elders and guidance in order to accomplish their life’s goals.
“They should think big and start small. By doing so, things will be better for them”.
