THE Federal Government has directed the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to mobilise all the eligible corps members for service year.
Director-General of the Scheme, Brigadier-General S. Kazaure, who stated this at a media parley in Abuja, on Wednesday, disclosed that as at that moment, the NYSC had the budget for only 86,000 corps members.
According to him, the Federal Government had directed the NYSC to mobilise all the eligible corps members, adding that there would be first batch in November 21, while the remaining batch would be in January 2017.
The NYSC is to mobilise all the 170,000 potential corps members for the 2016 Batch ‘B’ orientation course, which would commence on November 21.
He said the cost implications had been sent to President Muhammadu Buhari, who had assured them of his intervention.
Speaking on concessional postings for children of the rich in the society, the NYSC boss noted that the pressure which was almost smearing the image of the NYSC had been reduced since the online scheme started.
On the number of corps members that had been killed while on election duties, Brigadier-General Kazuare said so far, only 11 corps members lost their lives to elections, adding that the NYSC has done what the scheme prescribed in its laws, while the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) also paid compensation to the families of the deceased corps members.
The DG noted that since its establishment more than 40 years ago, successive managers of the scheme, with the support of government and other stakeholders, had kept alive the vision of its founding fathers, while deliberate steps had been taken with the aim of repositioning it for greater performance.
Also, in furtherance of their partnership drive, the Bank of Industry (BoI), through the BoI-NYSC Graduate Empowerment Fund, is providing corps entrepreneurs with training and soft loans to establish their own business.
Kazaure said the NYSC management would continue to sensitize corps members on the need to maintain neutrality, honesty and commitment to their electoral duties, while they had been reaching out to key stakeholders, especially security agencies and traditional rulers, on the need to maintain peace and protect the corps members before, during and after each election.
