By Stella Odueme
The Minister for Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, assured on Monday that his ministry will ensure that all NYSC members posted to both ministries and government Parastatals and the private sector are not rejected.
He also said that under his watch as Minister, all youth in the country, including those in the informal sector will be carried along to forestall any misunderstanding of government policies and actions.
The Minister who gave the assurance during a press conference in Abuja said as parts of moves to ensure compliance, his
ministry will send a memo to President, Bola Tinubu, directing all government Ministries, agencies and parastatals not to reject corps members posted to them to serve for the mandatory one-year service.
A memo dated November 18, 2024, from Comrade Ayodele Olawande, to the NYSC Director General, had stated that this lifting of the posting restrictions will take effect from the start date of the 2024 Batch ‘C Orientation Course allowing for corps members to now be posted to private sector organisations, including banks and oil and gas companies.
“Let them post them first, then we would tackle the rejection. In part of the memo that we sent to the NYSC, we clearly stated that there is no barrier.
Before now, there was a barrier that corps members could not be posted to this and that. Banks come and take them. If you don’t have experience in banking, how do you to know that you are good at accounting or whatever? We should stop lying to ourselves. And this is also part of how you should learn whatever you studied.
“Very soon we are also going to send a memo to our President to tell any government parastatal and agencies not to reject Corp members posted to them anymore. It is a process; we can’t do everything at once. The one in our capacity, we have thrown it out. So, on the barrier, we are also waiting, I know about that too. We will work, and that is why teamwork is good”, Olawande noted.
He said his ministry will continue to partner other Ministries, agencies and Parastatals including the private sector to carry along every youth in his Ministry’s programmes and activities.
“And what I have also said to both of myself, that before the end of my tenure in this office, if I’m
not in the 774 local government, I want to be part of 400 local government. So, it is not about us.
We have numbers of informal youths that nobody is talking to.
We are with the people. And nothing will take us.
“We have made up our mind using agriculture. We have made up our mind using sports. We
have made up our mind using entertainment.
We have made up our mind using ICT. It is government. We have made up our mind.
We are collaborating with all sectors, all agencies and all ministries. Ministries should be
known as capacity building ministries. We will hunt for the talent.
We will go and beg. We will plead to those that have it. We are not an island of knowledge.
We ask people to please, we need you.
‘My message, we need you. Let’s cooperate.
Let’s be with each other. Let’s enhance our heads together and let’s move forward with Ministry
of Youth Development.”
On the delay in the payment of the N77,000 increased allowance for serving corps members, Olawande explained that the implementation process is in ongoing..
He said that as soon as the process is completed, Corp members will begin receive the increased allowances.
“Government increase on allowance is a
process.
When government increase so-so, we follow a process. We are in the process. Very soon
you will see it.
It is not a rocket science. It has been increased. Nobody said that it has not been increased.
But implementation is a process. And very soon, we are on top of it. It is going to start and
we implementing it perfectly.”
