400,000 graduates participate in NYSC annually ― Official

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) says no fewer than 400,000 graduates are participating in the scheme annually.

The NYSC Area Director, North-East Zone, Ahidjo Yahaya, stated this while speaking with journalists on the sidelines of a Unity Walk, as part of its Golden Jubilee celebration in Bauchi on Monday, May 8.

Yahaya said the scheme has done well in the area of national integration, promoting affiliation, and collaboration among government agencies to make the country a better place.

He said: “Within these 50 years, I want to inform all Nigerians that we have done well and we will continue to do very well for the development of Nigeria.

“When the scheme was established in 1973, the corps members were not more than 1,000 in a year.

“Today, we produce up to 400,000 in a year as against 1,000 when the scheme started and you can see the development.

“At inception, our only mandate was national integration. We were mandated to integrate corps members together, but today, we have a lot of programmes aside national integration.”

The NYSC official stated that scheme is also participating in the electoral processes which made the processes successful with the involvement of the corps members.

Yahay said the scheme also introduced skills acquisition programmes designed to expose corps members to various trades and encourage entrepreneurship development to enable them to become self-reliant.

The scheme, he said, expanded the scope of the Community Development Service (CDS) programme which enabled Nigerians, especially rural dwellers to benefit from its health outreach.

Also speaking, a corps member, Opeyemi Bakare, lauded the NYSC for bringing people of different cultures, religions, languages, and ways of life together and uniting them.

The Star

Segun Ojo