Brig.-Gen. Johnson Olawumi, Director-General, National Youth
Service Corps (NYSC), on Monday called on private, public
institutions and individuals to stop sending requests for
concessional posting of prospective corps members.
The director-general said the scheme would no longer entertain or
grant such requests as the online registration platform introduced
by it had been designed to address the problem.
Olawumi said this at the opening ceremony of a two weeks skill
acquisition training programme in Building Technology for corps
members at the NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp in Abuja.
The programme is organised by the scheme in collaboration with
the Housing Developers Institute (HDI) for over 200 corps members
drawn from different states of the federation.
“The scheme has for the past few weeks received various requests
from MDAs of government, private institutions and individuals
seeking concessional posting.
“They are just wasting their time; we are not going to do any
concessional posting for anybody. This country belongs to
everybody so corps members should be able to serve anywhere we
deploy them.
“If we concede to this it will be killing the objective by which the
scheme was established which is national integration,” he said.
Olawumi said that the scheme had in the past allowed
concessional postings for prospective corps members who had
medical problems, pregnant women and nursing mothers.
“All those who have these challenges what they need to do is in
the process of doing the online registration they should upload
necessary documents and information to the portal and it will
automatically post them.
“These persons will automatically be posted to either the location
where they are receiving treatment or where their parents reside.
Pregnant and nursing mothers will be automatically posted to
where their spouses reside,” he said.
The director-general said the scheme had chosen the housing
sector as a key component of its skill acquisition training for corps
members to address youth unemployment.
He said that it was also to address the increasing housing deficit
which had reduced the capacity of employers to absorb more corps
members.
He said that through the course of empowering the youths through
the vocational training the nation gained in areas of trained labour
force and improved output quality.
The director-general said that the HDI was collaborating with the
scheme to address the problem of insufficient manpower in the
sector by providing technical knowledge with funding from the
World Bank.
“The commitment of the NYSC to skills acquisition and
entrepreneurship development (SAED) is limitless since its
establishment in 2012.
“In implementing this important aspect of the schemes structure,
monumental achievements have been recorded.
“To consolidate on these successes the orientation time table has
been adjusted to include skills acquisition in more than 25 units of
trade specialisation.
“This include shoe making, fashion designing, cosmetology, food
processing, animal husbandry, repair of electronic devices,
mechanical works and a host of others,” Olawumi said.
While urging the trainees to show focus and zeal in the training,
the director-general reaffirmed the scheme’s pledge to continue to
give useful skills to every willing graduate partaking in the
national service.
He said that the Ventures Management Department of the scheme
through public private partnership was concluding arrangements
to provide a bottle water factory and bakery in the camp.
According to Olawumi, the aim is to teach corps members and also
produce bread and hygienic water which is highly consumed
during and after orientation periods.
He said that the concept would be extended to all the six geo-
political zones of the country in order to give more corps members
the opportunity to train during their service year.
Mrs Rabiu Jimeta, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of
Youth Development, said the training would equip the youths with
necessary skills to address their challenge.
Jimeta said the corps members undergoing the training did not
have prior educational background in the field calling on them to
take the training sessions seriously.
Earlier, Mrs Mary Danabia, the Director of SAED, NYSC, said a total
of eight different skills would be taught to corps members during
the two weeks training.
She said they included: electrical installation, plumbing, welding,
fabrication and alluminium, tiling, painting, plaster of Paris,
bricklaying and interlocking tiles, carpentry and joinery.
Danabia said the programme was put in place by the scheme and
HDI to build the capacity of corps members to improve the
standard of houses being produced.
According to the director, the Housing Development Cooperative
Society (HDCS) will absorb the corps members trained to work in
their project site nationwide. (NAN)
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