Group under the auspices of Coalition Of Ethnic Nationality Youth Leaders Of Nigeria (CENYLON), has called on believers in the Nigeria Project to support the Bill seeking for the establishment of Trust Fund for NYSC.
The group, an umbrella body of influential youth leaders from various ethnic groups in Nigeria with memberships strength of over 25 Million, made the call on Thursday, during the World Conference, Held At the Arewa House, in Kaduna said the successful passage of the bill and its implementation will play a significant role in curbing the menace of insecurity in Nigeria.
They further stressed that the bill will give NYSC graduates with one skill or the other to engage themselves for self-reliance after the service year, thereby reducing the pressure of job employment on the part of the Government.
CENYLON, also commended the efforts of the Director General of NYSC, Brigadier General Shuaibu Ibrahim and his team for the the proper coordination of the scheme, noted that there are many challenges attached to the job since Tertiary Institutions now mobilize 400,000 Corps Members Yearly, unlike inception where only 2,364 were involved in the process.
In their Statement, they said “We want to start by commending the Director-General of NYSC, major-General Shuaibu Ibrahim, the Leadership and members of the House of Representatives for the successful Public Hearing on a Bill seeking to Establish the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Trust Fund.
“As you may be aware, the NYSC at its inception mobilized 2,364 Graduates for the scheme, however, due to the proliferation of government and private owned Tertiary Institutions to meet the need of our population, the scheme now mobilized over 400,000 graduates annually. This implies that more funds is required to achieve the objective of the scheme.
“We are aware that the NYSC was established under a tripartite arrangement, with the Federal, States and Local Governments having various responsibilities as spelt out in the NYSC Act Cap N84 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.
“However, with the dwindling resources accruable to the various tiers of Government, the funding of the NYSC has continued to reduce drastically to the level that major responsibilities of the States and Local Governments are shifted to the Federal Government.
“Considering the unquantifiable role the scheme has been playing in promoting national cohesion and giving fresh Graduates needed work experience in most organisation,
“We wish to strongly call on believers in the Nigeria project and in indissolubility to support the Bill that seeks to establish a Trust Fund for the NYSC, akin to that of the Tertiary Education Fund, TETFund, Gas Infrastructure Fund that was recently established in Petroleum Industry Act.
“The coalition notes that the Bill seeks to address the infrastructural deficit in the orientation camps and provide lodges for corp members in states and Local Government Areas, ensure adequate provision of other operational logistics, expand NYSC ventures to enhance revenue generation as well as address the problem of graduate unemployment in the country through training and empowerment of corp members.
“The successful passage of the bill and its implementation will play a significant role in curbing the menace of insecurity, as all ex corp members with business ideas will secure funding thereby keeping them busy and equally position them as employers of labour
“The bill is coming at a time Entrepreneurship studies has been made compulsory for all courses in our over 200 Tertiary Institutions of learning. While the students are trained to be self reliant, the Fund will help to business ideas of corps members to make them self reliant and employers of labour.
“Such beautiful innitiative will stand challenge of time in our country history, considering the fact that entrepreneurship is one the new order of the 21st century, such fund will help breach the gap our generation faces, and we believe that; history will judge the current leadership of NYSC fairly on this subject matter.
“In recent time, all performance indicators has shown that the current DG NYSC is the best among all, his quest to make NYSC globally recognised is yielding positive results every seconds while we equally observed that as at today NYSC is the Human resources factory of our nation ideals Hub, today our nation is competing in the global market where innovative ideas is price.
“We therefore wish to call on the House Committee on Youth Development to tidy up their report for final passage by the house and concurrence by the Senate.
“The Coalition believe that President Muhammadu Buhari who has shown unprecedented support for youth development via provision of various low interest rate facilities to budding businesses will gladly sign the passed bill into law.
Below is the groups architecture that makes up the (CENYLON)
Signed
Mallam Salihu Danlami
President
Coalition of Ethnic Nationality of Nigeria
Barr. Faruk Mohammed Ofoku
Spokesperson/CENYLON
Comrade Gabriel Abela Emmanuel
President
South South Concerned Youth for Peace and Stability
Engr. Rodney Nnamdi
Cordinator
South East Parliament
Comrade Abdulsalam Moh’d Kazeem
President
Unified Nigerian Youth forum
Mallam Gadzama Ibrahim
Chairman
North East Youth for Peace.
