By Najib Sani, Bauchi
The management of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the Bank of Industry, BOI, to provide loans to serving corps members across the country who underwent skills acquisition and entrepreneurial training at orientation camps to set up small scale businesses after the service year.
The director general of the NYSC, Suleiman Kazaure, disclosed this on Tuesday when he visited the 2,384 batch B, Stream two corps members undergoing orientation at Wailo camp in Bauchi state.
Mr Kazaure, a brigadier general, explained that the gesture was part of measures by the NYSC to surmount the problem of unemployment faced by teeming graduates in the nation.
The DG, who admitted that government could not provide jobs to all youths being produced by universities and polytechnics yearly, opined that corps members should pay serious attention to the skills acquisitions training taking place at camps to enable them start their own trades to earn a living and be self-reliant after the national service.
“We are trying to establish six skills acquisition centres in the six geo-political zones of the country where we will be training our corps members from all sides.
“Already we are into collaboration with CBN and Bank of Industry and they agreed to give loans to our corps members. So start-up funds is not a problem to us,” he pointed out.
Mr Kazaure, who advised the corps members deployed to the state to respect the culture of the locals and to always move in groups for security purpose, also challenged them to initiate or facilitate community development projects in their host communities which are some of the cardinal objectives of the scheme.
Earlier in his address, the Bauchi State coordinator of NYSC, Afolayan James, appealed to the people in the state to be helpful and hospitable to the youths so that they feel at home throughout their one year compulsory service and contribute their quota in nation building.
