Posted on: 05:22 Wed, 06 Jan 2016



Solomon Dalong, Minister of Youth,
Sports and Social Development, said
on Tuesday in Lagos that the Federal
Government would sustain the

National Youths Service Corps (NYSC)
scheme.

Dalong stated this when he paid an
official visit to the NYSC Orientation
Camp at Iyana-Ipaja, in Lagos State.

He said, ” I will stand for the
sustenance of the scheme and that it
should continue to grow. What we
need to do now is introduce skills
acquisition, empowerment; we need
to now repackage the scheme.

At the level of the Federal
Government, we are thinking of
after the mandatory one year
service, those who want to learn a
trade, skills acquisition and
entrepreneurship can be retained
and be given more training.

Our graduates are enlightening
minds, whatever you teach them,
they will survive with it. So a grant
will be given to them at the end to
start off and train other people. he
said.

Dalong charged the NYSC to install a
high tension illuminating light at the
camp, to ensure adequate security.

“You should have high tension
Illumination at the camp, as soon as
possible. If you have over 2,000
Nigerians in a place like this, you
should have a perfect illumination
due to the present security
challenges in the country. I am
impressed with what I have seen on
ground at the camp; the facilities are
good, I am satisfied,’’ he said.

Dalong also charged the NYSC to
renovate all existing orientation
camps in the country.

He said it had become very
important for the camps to be
upgraded to accommodate the
increasing number of graduates that
would be expected for the scheme.

“So as you embark on renovation,
put it in mind that more people will
be using the facilities.

I am saying this because I do not
know when we will get a new
orientation camp, but we are sure
that we will have more students
passing out of the tertiary
institutions.

When we started this scheme, we
never planned for what we have
now. Nigeria did not plan to have
the number of graduate we have
today, so the whole concept of NYSC
would have started with permanent
structures.

The visionaries of the scheme did not
anticipate that the scheme would live
this long, after the civil war.” the
Minister said.

Brig. Gen. Johnson Olawunmi,
Director-General, NYSC, while
conducting the minister round the
camp, said it had five boreholes
which served over 200 rooms.

Olawunmi said the budget of the
corps was reduced from N1.7 billion
to N227 million between 2013 and
2015.

He said the corps was facing serious
challenges following the reduction by
the past administration.

“We pay Security about N180 million
yearly to secure all the orientation
camps in the country out of the
budget and we are left with little or
nothing to run our programmes.

We have even reduced the camp to
two batches, because of lack funds.”
he added.