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| Corps members |
The Director General of the National
Youth Service Corps, Brigadier -General Johnson Olawumi, has stated that the
Federal Government has stopped posting corps members to the troubled three
states in the North-East which are under a state of emergency rule.
The states are Adamawa, Yobe and
Borno.
SHOWBIZPLUSng learnt that Olawumi stated this in Abuja on
Wednesday when he appeared before members of the Committee on Civil Society,
Labour, Youths and Sports of the national conference.
He said the agency had taken a
decision not to send any corps member to the three affected states unless the
request to be posted to any of the states comes from the corps member.
The DG said, “We have stopped
sending corps members to the three troubled states in North-East under emergency
rule. Surprisingly, some still demand to be posted there would get posted
there. But nobody is forced to go there.”
He said there was no way the agency
would stop those demanding to be posted there, adding that the embargo on the
three states would continue until security improved there.
Olawumi also spoke on areas the
agency was making use in order to make the corps members self reliance after
their one year service.
This, he said, included skills
acquisition and entrepreneurship development programme which he said had been
established in all states and Abuja to train corps members.
He said that many corps members have
benefitted from that programme and that this has made them to rather than
becoming job seekers after the one year service, they have actually became job
creators.
The DG also said the commission was
considering setting up youth empowerment fund where skilled corps members would
be able to draw after they must have finished their service years.
He said, “What we are looking at is
to have a pool where those corps members who have acquired one skill or the
other while in camp and throughout the service year will write a business
proposal, which we will look at and if we find it suitable, refer such a corps
member to the administrators of that fold that they can advance on loan.
“Such a loan if it is approved will
be interest free and there will be no issue of bringing collateral, since the
corps member is just passing out, we hold the discharge certificate as
collateral.
“We have tried that under the MDG,
War against Poverty Programme and seen hundred per cent response by corps
members to payment of loans given to them.”
He said the agency was already
planning to expand its coast by posting corps members to oil companies and
banks, an action he said was not part of the policy of the NYSC before.
He said that by government policy
only allow them “to deploy (corps) members to four key areas, which are health,
education, agriculture and rural development.
“Over time we found out that when we
post corps members to these areas, we still have some that do not have places
for their primary assignment.
“We are looking at expanding it
beyond this four to places like oil industry, the banking sector, the telecommunication
industries but in doing this, we might need to put some regulations in place so
that corps members are not used and dumped as it was done sometimes in the pas
by banks.”
Punch -
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