The Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brigadier General Yusuf Bomoi has assured that all graduates qualified to take part in the next orientation will be mobilised.
Bomoi, in an interview with The Guardian in Abuja at the weekend, expressed surprise at some media reports that gave the impression that a large number of graduates would not be mobilised.
He stated that some universities were in the habit of sending unqualified candidates for the scheme, that had, according to him, led to an unacceptable huge figure which the Federal Government could not cater for.
A controversy had been generated recently when the NYSC management, citing budgetary constraints, reportedly told tertiary institutions that not all their graduating students would be mobilised for the scheme. Some institutions like the Lagos State University (LASU) placed a full page advertisement in some national dailies, explaining its position and insisting that all its graduating students must be mobilised.
But Bomoi told The Guardian: "The genesis of it all is that, in the 2007 budget, provision was made for NYSC to mobilise 120, 000 corps members. The budget was prepared and passed before the mobilisation exercise. At the time the budget was passed, it was not possible even for the NYSC to know precisely, the exact number of candidates to be mobilised, because we have to obtain them from the co – producing institutions – the universities and the polytechnics.
"And because of the disruption in the educational system, sometimes you find that in some institutions, students will be writing exams, and in other institutions, students have finished writing exams, and things like that.
"So, out of the provision for 120, 000, we mobilised some 75, 816, for batch A (March) 2007. If you subtract that from 120, 000 it leaves you with a balance of 44, 184 to be mobilised against September 2007, Batch B. But ultimately, when the figures came from the co-producing institutions, it was staggering, some 175, 000 plus. Meanwhile, provision was made for 120, 000. If you do the subtraction, it gives the balance of 55, 000, not captured by the budget. That was the problem.
"And we now wrote…normally, when there is problem like that, we write to the Ministry of Finance, and the ministry started processing it. Meanwhile, we decided to call all the heads of tertiary institutions, the vice chancellors and rectors for a meeting. And because they are being supervised by the Federal Ministry of Education, we invited them through the Ministry of Education. The meeting was presided over by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry.
"And why we called for the meeting is because we have discovered that some of the institutions had been sending names of fake corps members, which is very serious. In some instances, we had names of those that never even went to the university. It was alarming and we were disturbed, particularly when you consider the fact that government has been spending a lot of money to fund the scheme and cater for the corps members."
According to him, many of those coming for the orientation are unqualified and have no business being in the NYSC. It was to check this that the NYSC invited the heads of the institutions, because this issue of fake corps members also greatly contributed to the funding problems.
Bomoi continued: "Because if you bring in names of those that are unqualified, that should have no business taking part in the scheme, then there is a problem. And that is why the number will be that staggering. So, when they came, we explained to them. Of course, we pointed out to them the dangers in including unqualified people. And we also did explain that we had written to the Ministry of Finance, and that the Ministry was looking into it.
"Naturally, they were scared. They understood our position, we also understood their position. And what was their position? Their position was that they had that fear. You know, for a vice chancellor or a rector, to go back and tell his students that not all of them would come for the NYSC scheme, there would be problems."
By Rotimi Lawrence Oyekanmi
The Guardian
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
