The federal government, led by President Bola Tinubu, has introduced a new plan to turn the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) into an agency that generates revenue.
Jamila Bio-Ibrahim, the Minister of Youth Development, revealed this during an interview with ChannelsTV on Sunday night.
When asked about the possibility of increasing the monthly allowance for corps members, the minister explained that the government is currently focused on reforming the NYSC scheme to align with the current situation in the country.
“We all understand that resources are dwindling; even oil revenues are not as they used to be but we will find innovative ways of ensuring that corps members’ welfare is well-taken care of,” she said.
“When it comes to remuneration and looking totally at the holistic funding of the NYSC, we have announced a reform of the NYSC scheme itself. So, we want the scheme to go beyond that social programme of government to be that revenue-generating scheme and agency.
“The reforms which transform the NYSC into a revenue-generating agency and prepare the corps members for the job market and to be decently and gainfully employed or to be employers of labour through entrepreneurship and of course, perfect matching into primary assignment and all the support they need in that career path.”
She mentioned that due to the deteriorating security conditions in the country, corps members are no longer assigned to states considered unsafe.
“As an immediate intervention of the government and the NYSC as an agency, we have actually stopped posting corps members to the very unsafe states.
“We have been doing it. We have been doing it in the past. There are states we have not been posting corps members to to ensure their safety,” she added.
She believes that ensuring the security of corps members necessitates working together with other government agencies.
“When it comes to security matters, it is a multi-sectoral approach. 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,” the minister said.
