The Bola Tinubu-led federal government has unveiled a fresh plan to transform the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) into a revenue-generating agency.
The Minister of Youth Development, Jamila Bio-Ibrahim, disclosed this during an interview with ChannelsTV on Sunday night.
Asked if there were immediate plans to increase the monthly allowance of corps members, the minister said the government was working on reforming the NYSC scheme to reflect the present realities of the nation.
“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 noted that corps members were no longer posted to states deemed unsafe in the wake of worsening security conditions in the country.
“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.
According to her, the security of corps members requires collaboration with other agencies of government.
“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.