The National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) says mobilization of prospective corps members will not happen anytime soon.
NYSC Director-General, Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Shuaibu, told PRNigeria that the process had been put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Shuaibu explained that the management will only organize fresh orientation exercises when the coast becomes clear.
He recalled that the Batch A, Stream 1 corps members who were already camping, were hurriedly dismissed due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
The DG disclosed that they will be recalled to their various orientation camps to complete the remaining part of the training.
“We don’t know when we are going to start mobilizing our corps members. You know our training is also structured like that of the military and paramilitary. You can see that the Nigerian Navy recently suspended its training for its freshly recruited cadets”, he said.
General Shuaibu, however, expressed delight over the NYSC Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) programme.
He said it had recorded tremendous successes, which can be seen from the activities of corps members in the fight against COVID-19.
“They have produced face masks, sanitizers, disinfectant tools, and automatic sanitizing machines. They are also involved in the sensitization and distribution of palliatives of some of these items to communities.”
Shuaibu also gave an insight into NYSC’s drive to generate money for the scheme.
He said:
We are on Instagram @viraltrendnews“We now have NYSC bread and Table Water Company in Kubwa. We want to see how we can replicate the same in the States so that during orientation exercises, we can get these items from our production plants.“Some corps members are into fish and snail farming in NYSC farms. We want to embark on commercial farming of rice. We want to key into the Federal Government’s policy on local content on agric business because we don’t want to be a burden. We must continue to look for ways to internally generate our revenue.”
