AFTER several battles fought on the recent decision made by National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), to slash the number of graduands to be mobilised for the scheme by over 70 per cent, the leadership of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) led by Comrade Aruna Kadiri, has successfully put a smile in the faces of Nigerian students due for the mobilisation process.
This agreement was reached when NANS President, with his team, paid a visit to the office of the Director-General of NYSC, Brigadier General Suleiman Kazaure, in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to Kadiri, who addressed a Press conference in Abuja, after the visitation, “We all came out smiling after the meeting we held with the Director-General of the NYSC. This is because the DG has categorically stated that President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered that all qualified graduands should be mobilised and none should be left out.”
He added that “for this reason, I assure Nigerian students that all tertiary institutions will also make sure that all their students would go for the service. Every qualified graduand would be captured and mobilised.”
In a related development, Kadiri urged the National Assembly, Federal Government and the Director-General of the NYSC to put a stop to the downward slash of NYSC budgetary allocation.
Kadiri admitted that “what is happening now is as a result of slash in the budgetary allocation, which must not persist. As the year goes by, there will be more students, both local and international, that would be mobilised for the programme. So, if there is a slash in the budget of NYSC and they want to give us quota, definitely there would not be financial resources to mobilise all the students due for mobilisation.”
He added that the downward slash could result to a disaster not only to Nigerian students but also to the Nigerian economy, because if graduands are accumulated, it will get to a point whereby many students will not go for the programme, even after five years of graduation.
