ANI: WE DO NOT HOLD ORIENTATION PROGRAMME IN STATES WITH SERIOUS SECURITY CHALLENGES

we are going to do, must be within the ambit of the law, and for today, the law says when anybody graduates, either from the university or polytechnic, that person will make his or herself available; it is a condition, it is not a plea. Unfortunately, people think that the NYSC period is just a period of waiting or a period to go and look for job; No!, it is a period of national service, and when we talk about National service, we are talking about selfless service, sacrifice, self is not considered. But what one is going to give to the nation, and people must understand this. So we must go by what the Act states.

Does NYSC grant request from corporate organisations that want corps members for one-year primary assignment?

In the first instance, every organisation that needs corps members will write to the NYSC, indicating the number they want and the area of specialisation. However, the Federal Government also decided that oil companies, banks, multi-nationals should be excluded from places we post corps members, this corps members, who are on national assignment, their services are mostly needed in the rural areas. Some say, oh !, why post corps members to teach, and I tell them that it is better for students to have a corps member standing before them than not to have nobody at all. Apart from the cities where you have clusters of teachers, in some rural areas, you don’t have anybody at all, you can’t see permanent teachers, the corps members are the ones feeling the gap, and if you go to some clinics, you will never see permanent medical doctor there, it is the corps members. There are communities, they have never seen a medical doctor in their lives, in Nigeria, and so what are we supposed to do? If you read the Act, it says: “You post them in the fair needs of the nation.” The oil companies have money to hire the best hands in the world, the communities don’t have that, so the need of Nigeria, where Nigeria needs the services of these corps members still remain the priority of the NYSC. So that informs what we have done, that these corps members must be posted to the rural areas and not the banks. What are the banks doing? The banks will write to NYSC that they need corps members, when you post corps members to them, in most cases, not even the corps members that are qualified, it is the corps members they want, and a good number of them are women, the men will be accepted, only the girls, who will go and be doing marketing to bring money to them, and for us, that is not what NYSC is about. And at the end of the service year, these ones are pushed out, a new set are coming in, when you ask the banks, how many corps members that served here did you give jobs, the answer is none. So, we have to be very, very careful and know what we are doing.

Corps members sometimes feel unsafe, how do you intend to manage the insecurity of corps members, especially in the crisis prone areas?

The corps members sometimes feel unsafe just like every other Nigerian feel unsafe; they are not special breeds, they are Nigerians, living in Nigeria. So, whatever is affecting Nigeria, will definitely affect the corps members. However, what we tell the corps members is that, number one, you are the chief security officer of yourself, and because of that, we give them security tips right from the orientation camps, to let them know what they should look out for, everybody on camp. After that, in their places of primary assignment, we have also told the corps members, they have to respect the culture of the people. Secondly, you have to be friendly with the people you find there, and on no account should you denigrate them, don’t think you are the only graduate produced in Nigeria. And so we go further to tell the security agencies in all the areas, the local governments and states, to tell them that these corps members should be adequate protection where they are living, and then we gave the corps members telephone numbers of all the security agencies should there be a problem. Having said that, let me state that it has not been so bad, even in those areas where you talk about. Rather, the corps members are being protected by those indigenes; it is very natural, there is no way a corps member will be living within my community and that corps member will be armed by the same community, rather, he will be protected, so that has been our own experience.

Is there a special arrangement for those posted to the North- east?

No, no, no, we post people to the North-east, to all the states in the federation, in keeping with the law. But we do not organise the orientation programme in those states, why?, you don’t give opportunity to enemies who want to destroy you to have their way, it will be unreasonable for NYSC to go to Borno and be having an Orientation, all the corps members posted to Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, and even Gombe will not have their orientation in those states, we are going to move them to states that are safer. And while they are doing the orientation, they will also be given the opportunity to relocate, if you don’t want to stay in Borno state, you will indicate where you want to go. But let me also use this opportunity to inform you, somebody can say, okay, for security reason, I want to be in Abuja, we will send the person to maybe Oyo state, Ekiti state or to Enugu state where there are no security challenges, it must not be only in Abuja. But the bottom-line is that they will not do orientation in those states where there is security problem, and during their orientation, they will also be given an opportunity to relocate. This information was there online, as they were choosing.