By ZAKAA LAZARUS
The Director General of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu has appealed for more support to enhance Corps Members’ financial education, mentorship, technical skills and grants, which would enable them fulfil their dreams of becoming entrepreneurs.
This was contained in his keynote address at a meeting of the Scheme’s Stakeholders on Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED), which took place at the Nigerian Army Resource Centre, Abuja.
The Director General, represented by the Director, Planning, Research and Statistics, Dr Ahmed Wada Ikaka disclosed that the need for more support for Corps entrepreneurs has become imperative taking into cognizance, “the wide gap that exists between the large number of Corps Members that were trained on different vocational skills compared to the few numbers that become business owners”.
He stated further that the disparity was caused by insufficient access to start-up funds and stringent conditions attached to accessing the same, which were unfavourable to prospective Corps entrepreneurs.
General Nafiu said NYSC had successfully sensitized more than Three Million Corps Members on entrepreneurship development and taken them through hands-on training in one vocational skill or the other since the inception of SAED in 2012; a significant number of whom had already established their own business enterprises and become employers of labour.
He used the occasion to acknowledge NNPCL Foundation, Activate Success and Wema Bank for facilitating the registration of over 30,000 Corps Members’ businesses with a 50% discount by the Corporate Affairs Commission, thereby fostering their formal participation in the nation’s business environment conveniently.
The Director General reassured the stakeholders that NYSC had taken proactive measures to ensure that any kind of support they render to Corps entrepreneurs would be fully accounted for.
He added that the Scheme has upgraded the SAED structure on the NYSC Integrated System (NIS), which provides Corps Members with a single-window access to capacity development and entrepreneurship development tools.
“This digital integration facilitates skill selection and tracking via Corps Members’ dashboards and beyond traditional skill acquisition. We have launched the Job Awareness Creation Program, featuring job readiness trainings, mock interviews, and CV reviews”, the DG said.
He also disclosed that the Scheme is currently improving the capacity of Corps Members to engage directly with potential employers, locally and internationally through the instrumentality of the Outsource to Nigeria Initiative (OTNI) being facilitated by the Office of the Vice-President of Nigeria (OVPN).
“We are also in budding partnership with the Federal Ministry of Communication, Innovations and Digital Economy to mainstream Corps Members into its Three Million Technical Talent (3MTT) project. These initiatives promise to be the game changer in realising the youth inclusion and employment generation components of Mr. President’s Renewed Hope Agenda”, General Nafiu added.
Speaking earlier, the Director, Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED), Mr Kehinde Aremu-Cole said the meeting with the theme; “Transforming Corps Members: Strengthening Partnership for Sustainable Skills Acquisition and Empowerment”, was to celebrate the enduring partnerships that has continued to drive the SAED initiative.
He urged all participants to contribute actively, share their experiences, offer constructive feedback, and propose innovative ways to improve the SAED programme.
