No State Can Survive Today Without NYSC — Minister

The Minister for Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, has said that state governments across Nigeria cannot function effectively without the contributions of members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), describing the scheme as critical to grassroots development nationwide.

Olawande made the remarks on Monday in Abuja at a Stakeholders’ Consultative Forum on the NYSC Reform, where he stressed the need to reposition the over-50-year-old scheme to reflect current realities.

According to the minister, the NYSC remained a vital institution for unity and national development and must be preserved through meaningful reforms.

“The NYSC is a platform of unity, natio-building and national development. It is also an institution that the majority of us here today have benefited from, directly or indirectly, which is why we are all doing our best to make sure that it survives and nothing happens to it.

“The National Youth Service Corps remains an important drive for grassroots development across Nigeria.

“The corps members continue to play a crucial role, I can tell you for free, and I thank God that the Governors’ Forum is here. There is no government, state government that can survive without corps members; in education, in health, in agric, in sports, in whatever area, and this is one of those things that I want the reform to look into very well,” the Minister said.

Olawande also emphasised the need for the scheme to evolve in line with societal changes and global realities.

“We must recognise that this scheme needs to move with the times, and also accept that the time is moving beyond the scheme, and meet all the challenges, all the changes needed for our society and also global reality,” he added.

The minister further called for a review of the NYSC posting system to better align corps members’ deployment with their academic and professional training, noting that many do not derive satisfaction from their service year due to poor placement.

“We still find corps members in places that are not related to their academic and professional training. And because of this, we usually miss the opportunity to place many of our skilled youths where they belong in their national service.

“The corps members also do not get the satisfaction they expected during their service because of the gap that we have. We must review the current posting system to connect corps members with their skills area,” Olawande stated.

On his part, the Director-General of the NYSC, Brigadier-General Olakunle Nafiu, said the scheme has grown significantly in scope and relevance, mobilising about 400,000 graduates annually, with projections indicating a rise to over 600,000 from 419 institutions by 2026.

“We believe that the scheme’s importance in today’s Nigerian socio-economic environment is even greater than when it was first introduced 52 years ago.

“In 1973, the first set of corps members was about 2,364. Today, 52 years later, we are mobilising 400,000 annually… we expect that 650,000 locally trained graduates will come knocking to serve their fatherland next year,” he said.

Brig-Gen. Nafiu also disclosed that the deployment of corps members saves some states between N30bn and N40bn annually, citing the provision of about 400 doctors to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) each year and interventions in states facing education sector shortages.

“As a matter of fact, no state can survive today without the NYSC. We have saved some states up to the tune of N30bn, N40bn annually when we deploy corps members,” he said.

He added that requests from states with crises in education were often addressed through targeted deployment of corps members, with visible improvements over time.

Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman, called for broad stakeholder collaboration to ensure the success of the proposed reforms.

“No reform of this scale can succeed without collaborative participation,” she stated.