The Minister for Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, has revealed that the ministry will soon send a memo to President Bola Tinubu, instructing all government agencies and parastatals not to reject corps members assigned to them for their mandatory one-year service.
Olawande made this statement during a press conference in Abuja on Monday, in response to concerns about possible rejection of corps members, despite the Federal Government’s recent directive allowing for postings to the private sector.
On November 19, 2024, the Federal Government lifted the ban that previously restricted the posting of corps members to only the public sector, now allowing them to be posted to private sector organizations, including banks and oil companies.
Olawande explained that the ministry had already addressed the issue of rejection in a memo sent to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), instructing that no barriers should exist for the posting of corps members.
“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,” Olawande said.
He went on to highlight that before the ban was lifted, certain sectors, like banking, were inaccessible for corps members.
“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.”
The minister also revealed plans to send a memo directly to the president, emphasizing that government agencies and parastatals should no longer reject corps members assigned to them.
“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,” he said.
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In addition to addressing the issue of corps members’ placement, Olawande also discussed the delay in the payment of the newly increased allowance for serving corps members.
The government had previously announced an increase to N77,000 per month, but corps members have expressed concerns about the delay in receiving the payments.
Olawande reassured that the implementation was in process. “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,” the minister stated.
