NYSC: The Journey To Self-sustenance
NYSC: The Journey To Self-sustenance
The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has come a long way
since its inception by Decree No 24 of 1973 in response to the nation’s
post- civil war challenges. The then military administration saw it as
one effective way of harnessing the energy and potentials of the
educated youth population for the implementation of the policy of
reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation. To ensure its successful take-off, the government, then, spared no
expense.
It was speculated at that time that the Corps had a special
account at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for its operations.
Expectedly, abuses followed that were exposed by Major General Muhammadu
Buhari when he came into power as Head of State on New Year’s Eve in
1983. Nigerians were aghast that NYSC was such a goldmine when a
tribunal set up by Buhari started coming up with mind-blowing sleaze and
some of the Corps officials including the Director General earned for
themselves a few years in jail. And that marked the beginning of the
hard times and feeding from hand to mouth for NYSC to the point that mobilising prospective corps members is becoming
something of a herculean task. That is to be expected in an economy that
is in recession. But President Buhari who, as a military ruler,
redeemed NYSC from the quagmire it found itself as a result of
mismanagement is out, again, to rescue it from the effects of an
explosion in the number of prospective corps members as a result of an
exponential expansion in the approved list of corps producing
institutions. This he has done by assuring the corps that resources will
not hamper the mobilisation of qualified members.
But the youth development agency, even with this assurance, is
beginning to acquire the noble virtue of self-reliance, a policy that is
energetically being pursued by the incumbent Director General,
Brigadier General Sulaiman Zakari Kazaure as part of his determination
to galvanise the youthful energy at the disposal of the corps to make it
the independent agency of government it ought to have been.
It is gratifying, in our opinion, that the corps is looking inwards
for means of sustaining its programmes. Hitherto, it used to out-source
the production of kits for corps members and gulping, in the process,
millions of naira. All that is now in the past as it has set up
facilities for the production of those items. Another aspect of its
function that was a money guzzler was feeding the participants during
orientation. That, too, has been addressed by the corps’ involvement in
agricultural projects from which it feeds the corps members and even
have excess it donates to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Its
rice mill in Ezillo in Ebonyi State and the garri factory in Afon, Kwara
State as well as cattle it breeds have helped in no small way in
reducing the overall cost of running the agency. There is also a water
packaging facility and when all these are put together, NYSC hopes to be
in a position to absorb a substantial cost of running its operations.
These initiatives by the corps, emboldened it enough to go to town, for
the first time, to show what it is doing to limit its reliance on public
funding.
But NYSC is worried about the perception of it as purely a federal
government affair. Much as the federal government bears a larger share
of the burden of running the agency, we agree with the management that
the law setting it up has roles also clearly created for the other tiers
of administration at the state and local governments especially in the
provision of orientation camp facilities, post camp accommodation,
transport of corps members, logistics support for inspection of corps
location, material support for community development service and
security of corps members.
We urge NYSC to remain steadfast in its efforts to attain self-
sufficiency even as we admonish other tiers of government to be alive to
their responsibilities.
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