For various reasons, Nigerians have advocated for one-year military training to be included in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Programme. But this demand has met with a definite answer from the national board of the NYSC scheme, at least, for now.
Board Chairman, Alhaji Tijani Adekanbi, at his meeting with the Niger State Acting Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Musa Ibeto, at the Government House, Minna on Monday on a courtesy call stated that the board met recently on the issue and suspended the matter for the meantime.
According to Adekanbi, the primary reason why the NYSC cannot give military training to corps members as it is being requested is because after the training, there is nowhere the corps members will be posted .
“If we give them one-year military training we have to absorb them into any of the services,” Adekanbi said, stressing that it will be dangerous for the country if they were allowed to be on their own.
The chairman of the national board of the NYSC also disclosed that the scheme is currently working out a guideline that must be followed by all corps members while embarking on their community development service to ensure that overambitious projects with huge financial demands are not embarked upon.
While insisting that community development projects embarked upon by corps members have assisted in the development of the various communities where youth corps members are posted to, he advised those patronising NYSC community development projects to scrutinise the projects properly and contact the NYSC secretariat before supporting the idea.
On the issue of fake NYSC camps and fake NYSC certificate, the chairman called for more vigilance on the part of employers of labour, insisting that there is no way the NYSC discharge certificate could be forged. He, therefore, asked employers of labour to always, before promoting any staff, cross-check the validity of the NYSC certificate tendered by the worker.
He also maintained that influential Nigerians who try to make their children evade the mandatory one year service are subjecting them to future risk as they would not be eligible for employment or contest election without the discharge certificate.
In his remarks, the acting governor said the NYSC scheme had assisted the state in the implementation of its education and health care programmes through the provision of qualified manpower.
“The NYSC scheme has enabled Nigerians to know every part of this country, it has made our youths to know the true situation on ground in the states where they served,” he said.
