NYSC Will Not Be Cancelled - Minister Of Youth Development.

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.