…urges support for passage of Trust Fund
A rights group, Save Nigeria Movement (SNM) in collaboration with the College of Bishops, Imams, and Clergy Council of Nigeria (CBICCON) have expressed confidence in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) for its role in promoting national cohesion as well as creating job opportunities for several youths.
The groups while addressing a joint press conference in Abuja explained that their position is in line with their mandates of serving as watchdogs and crusaders in the fight against corruption towards reforming and creating a better society for all.
Rev Solomon Semaka and Bishop Abel Kings, Convener of Save Nigeria Movement SNM, and National Coordinator of CBICCON while speaking poured encomiums on the current management team of the NYSC headed by the Director General (DG), Brig Gen Yu’Shau Ahmed for its avid dedication and commitment to the welfare and empowerment of Nigerian youths as well as in keeping with the objectives, vision and mission of the Scheme.
The release read in part, “as a civil society organisation (CSO) and religious leaders, we feel obliged to promote social order and excellence in leadership. NYSC under Brig Gen Yu’Shau Ahmed who has exceeded all expectations and driven the Scheme to enviable heights within a short on the saddle and we are pleased with his stewardship. We are not passive but active actors in the civil space and shall continue to partner, mobilise and garner support for the Scheme with the confidence that the current management is well poised to deliver on the mandate of the Scheme for the benefit of Nigerian youths and Nigerians at large”.
They also took out time to eulogize the DG and his team for their unwavering commitment to upholding the founding ideals of the Scheme especially in the areas of promoting national unity, employment generation and skill acquisition for youth empowerment and self reliance.
According to the release, “the NYSC scheme was an honest effort to unite Nigerians through a deliberate policy of posting graduate Nigerians across different cultures and backgrounds to different locations so as to break the stereotypes and tribal misconceptions as well as suspicions that existed before and after the Nigerian civil war. This has been achieved with outstanding success. The scheme has also become the largest employer of labour with millions of Nigerians participating from almost every family and community”.
Other pivotal achievements of the Scheme under the astute leadership of Brig Gen Yu’Shau Ahmed according to the release is “the provision of essential services through a strategic partnership with government ministries, agencies, parastatals and the private sector, as most health facilities and schools in the rural areas all over the country would have collapsed for lack of manpower if not for the intervening role of NYSC Corp members. In fact, medical Corps members and teachers have been made to head some of those institutions with outstanding results so far especially in the rural areas where most government workers dread to work”.
On election duty and other essential services offered by Corps members, the groups hailed the current management “for not only sustaining the partnership that has seen Corps members actively participating in the recent elections in Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa but also ensuring the safety of Corps members on these assignments. With the involvement of Corps members, electoral fraud has become a thing of the past and their participation in the forthcoming Census under the leadership of Brig Gen Yu’Shau will be a game changer for Nigerians first digital Census because of their advanced technological skills”.
While commending the current DG for his foresight to continue with the policies of his predecessors and even take it a notch further with his wealth of experience and personal commitment to youth development in the country, the release urged Nigerians “to continue to prevail on Mr. President to assent on the NYSC Trust Fund Bill to enable the Scheme deliver on its world class skill acquisition facilities and the empowerment of youths with start up capital and other logistics. It is our conviction that as soon as the Bill is assented to by the President, youth unemployment will be a thing of the past with the kind strategies already on ground”
The CSOs also called on the public to support the Scheme with useful intelligence to help secure Corps members across the country as security is a collective responsibility of everybody, adding that, “Brig Gen Yu’Shau Ahmed and his team have done so much to drive the renewed hope agenda of Mr. President especially in the area of welfare and security of Corps members and they need our support. A situation where Corps members are subjects of attack by criminal elements is discouraging and will only dampen their moral to serve”.
SNM and CBICCON finally passed an overwhelming vote of confidence on the DG of NYSC, Brig Gen Yu’Shau Ahmed and his competent team “who have served transparently as well as shown true patriotism in the face of challenges and scarce resources”. They further pledged their “steadfast support to the Scheme, calling on Nigerians as well as other CSOs to join forces in promoting the policies and programmes of the NYSC scheme under the current leadership”.
