The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) management is working with the National Salaries and Wages Commission (NSWC) to place corps members on a public service salary scale.
NYSC boss, Brig. Gen. Johnson Olawumi said that the move would address the frequent agitation for review of corps members’ allowances.
Apparently, previous attempts to secure adjustment in the allowances of corps members at the National Assembly did not yield the desired result.
Olawumi maintained that the current N19,800 monthly allowance for a corps member was inadequate in view of current economic realities in the country.
He assured that the NYSC was working closely with the Wages Commission to concretize the proposal. The NYSC scheme was created in a bid to reconstruct, reconcile and rebuild the country after the Nigerian Civil War.
The unfortunate antecedents in our national history gave impetus to the establishment of the National Youth Service Corps by decree No.24 of May 22, 1973, which stated that the “NYSC is being established with a view to the proper encouragement and development of common ties among the youths of Nigeria and the promotion of national unity”.
But, as should be clearly seen, national unity and integration are almost impossible in a poverty-stricken environment.
The point must be made that the National Youth Service Corps was born as a child of necessity, established as part of the reconciliation effort of the government after the most trouble era in Nigeria’s history.
That was the initial objective but the present national realities have even made it more imperative. National reconciliation and integration are continuous efforts and process which the agency has been spearheading.
Through the NYSC, Nigerian youths are brought together, posted from one part of the country to the other and given the opportunities to offer voluntary and selfless services.
In the 41 years of its existence, NYSC has recorded a massive improvement in different aspects of its operations. In addition, it has contributed immensely to the nation’s socio-economic development efforts.
However, in 1993, in a bid to make objectives of the scheme even more relevant to the socio-economic needs of the society, the National Youth Service Corps Decree No.24 was repealed and replaced by Decree 51 of June 16, 1993.
The decree recommended the equitable distribution of members of the service corps and the effective utilization of their skills in areas of national needs.
It also recommended that as far as possible, youths were assigned to jobs in states other than their states of origin; that such group of youths assigned to work together was as representative of Nigeria as far as possible; that the Nigerian youths were exposed to the modes of living of the people in different parts of Nigeria; that the Nigerian youths were encouraged to eschew religious intolerance by accommodating religious differences; that members of the service corps were encouraged to seek, at the end of their one-year national service, career employment all over Nigeria, thus promoting the free movement of labour and that employers were induced partly through their experience with members of the service corps to employ more readily and on a permanent basis, qualified Nigerians, irrespective of their states of origin.
To this end, if corps members are placed on civil service salary, they would live a decent life and even save for the rainy day.
We have previously suggested that vocational training and skills acquisition should be introduced into the NYSC programme, with the first seven months reserved for the regular national service while the remaining five months should be used to provide vocational training and skills acquisition in catering and baking, carpentry, IT development, hair dressing and cosmetology, tailoring, soap making, brick-laying, shoe-making, among others, to corps members.
Therefore, NYSC should be restructured to purge it of corrupt practices in all ramifications.
Corps members should not be posted to violence-prone areas under any guise and should not be used as INEC ad hoc staff for elections.
Also, postings should not be influenced or changed to suit some people, no matter how highly placed.
Again, instead of just posting corps members to their places of national assignments, NYSC should liaise with the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) to train graduates in various vocational and entrepreneurial skills and after completing their training, the NYSC can group them and help them get loans from Bank of Industry and other Micro Finance Banks to set up SME’s, in addition to the amount they must have saved.
In this way, many a corps member can become employer of labour after service instead of looking endlessly for non-existent jobs.
We believe the NYSC is still very relevant and should be continued but periodically reviewed to meet the challenges of the modern era.
