The Coalition of Ethnic Nationality Youth Leaders of Nigeria (CENYLON) has risen in support of the Bill seeking establish the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Trust Fund.
CENYLON, an umbrella body of youth leaders from various ethnic groups in Nigeria, made its position known at a press conference in Kaduna on Thursday. The text of the press conference was read by Barr. Faruk Mohammed Ofoku, the coalition’s spokesman.
They commended the Director-General of NYSC, Major-General Shuaibu Ibrahim, and the House of Representatives for successfully holding public hearing on the Bill.
“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 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.”
Those who signed the press conference include Mallam Salihu Danlami, PresidentCoalition 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; and Mallam Gadzama Ibrahim, Chairman North East Youth for Peace.
