Federal Government Pledges Action to Ensure Acceptance of NYSC Corps Members Across Government Departments

Ayodele Olawande, the Minister of Youth Development, has declared that the federal government will require all parastatals and government agencies to accept corps members assigned to them for their required one-year national service.

During a news conference in Abuja on Monday, Olawande disclosed that the ministry would formally communicate this direction to President Bola Tinubu through a memo.

He mentioned that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) had previously received a communication telling them that posting of corps members should not be impeded.

The minister reaffirmed the government’s opposition to such practices and addressed concerns regarding certain agencies’ rejection of corps members.

This action comes after the federal government recently decided to remove the prohibition on posting corps members to businesses in the private sector, such as banks and oil and gas firms.

The policy change was announced on November 19, 2024, and it became effective on Wednesday with the start of the Batch C, Stream 1 orientation exercise.

He said: “Let them post them first, then we would tackle the rejection. In part of the memo that we sent to the NYSC, we clearly stated that there is no barrier.

“Before now, there was a barrier that corps members could not be posted to this and that. Banks come and take them. If you don’t have experience in banking, how do you want to know that you are good at accounting or whatever? We should stop lying to ourselves. And this is also part of how you should learn whatever you studied.

“Very soon we are also going to send a memo to the President to tell any government parastatal and agency not to reject anymore. It is a process; we can’t do everything at once. The one in our capacity, we have thrown it out. So, on the barrier, we are also waiting, I know about that too. We will work, and that is why teamwork is good.”

The minister said that the implementation was underway and that the corpers will start receiving the N77,000 additional stipend “very soon,” addressing the delay in its payment to serving corps members.

He added: “It is a process. When the government increases so and so, it will follow a process. We are in the process, very soon they will see it. It is not rocket science. It has been increased; nobody is saying it has not been increased. But the implementation is in process. And very soon, we are at the tip of it, it is going to start, and we will implement it perfectly.”