The Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Brig.-Gen. Olakunle Nafiu says the scheme is addressing delays in corps mobilisation through reforms and stakeholder engagement.
Mr Nafiu disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Abuja, noting that the delays were caused by multiple factors.
He said many of the challenges were outside the direct control of the scheme, particularly issues related to corps producing institutions and data management processes.
“It is not a single factor; delays often come from late uploads by institutions and errors in the data submitted to us,” he said.
According to him, the expansion of tertiary institutions has significantly increased the volume of graduates awaiting mobilisation, thereby complicating coordination and processing.
He said that from about 10 institutions at inception, Nigeria now had more than 120 universities, polytechnics, and monotechnics feeding graduates into the NYSC annually, with some other graduates coming from institutions abroad.
Mr Nafiu explained that institutions often delayed uploading graduates’ details due to internal administrative processes, including result approvals and attempts to batch submissions.
He added that inconsistencies in candidates’ data, especially name variations, also contributed to delays during verification with government databases.
“We rely on data from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board and National Identity Management Commission, so when there are discrepancies, the system flags errors which must be corrected by the individuals concerned,” he said.
The director-general said funding constraints also affected mobilisation, as the scheme operated within an annual budget tied to a fixed number of corps members.
He said that while about 650,000 graduates were projected for mobilisation, government approval currently covers 400,000 for the service year, but that upon intervention the Federal Government added 50,000 to the number for 2026.
“In spite of these constraints, we are engaging government and institutions to improve the process and reduce waiting time for prospective corps members,” he said.
Mr Nafiu said that the scheme had restructured its pre-mobilisation process, including mandatory training workshops for student affairs officers in tertiary institutions.
He said the workshops were designed to improve understanding of mobilisation procedures and reduce errors in data submission by institutions.
“We discovered that some of them do not fully understand the process, so we now use the workshops to train and guide them,” he said.
He added that institutions were now required to notify NYSC promptly when there were changes in student affairs personnel to avoid disruptions.
Mr Nafiu cited a recent instance where five institutions failed to upload students’ data due to changes in personnel, affecting mobilisation timelines.
He said the scheme intervened by extending deadlines and engaging the affected institutions to ensure that students were not unduly disadvantaged.
The director-general also addressed concerns over difficulties experienced during online registration by prospective corps members.
He said the transition to digital registration since 2014 was aimed at improving efficiency and ensuring accurate data capture through biometric verification.
Nafiu explained that prospective corps members were required to complete registration at accredited centres, where their biometrics and photographs were captured.
He acknowledged complaints about network challenges and delays at registration centres, attributing them to infrastructure limitations beyond NYSC control.
He, however, said the scheme was working on reforms to make the process more seamless, including plans to enable remote registration from home.
“When such issues arise, we respond by extending registration timelines and engaging our technical partners to resolve them quickly.
“Our goal is to reach a point where prospective corps members can complete registration from their homes without the need for physical presence,” he said.
He added that ongoing digitisation efforts in the education sector, including centralised academic data systems, would further enhance the mobilisation process.
Nafiu reaffirmed NYSC’s commitment to reducing delays, improving user experience and ensuring a more efficient mobilisation system for Nigerian graduates and that the scheme would continue to evolve its processes to meet growing demands and align with technological advancements in public service delivery.
On corps members’ allowance, he said that the recent increase in corps members’ allowance reflected government’s commitment to their welfare amid economic realities.
According to him, the increase from N33,000 to N77,000 is guided by policy tied to the national minimum wage.
He explained that corps members’ allowance was not arbitrarily fixed but derived from the minimum wage benchmark plus an additional percentage.
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