By Bukola Olasanmi

Youths of any nation globally are the foothold of a secured tomorrow for the country. Nigeria is a country blessed with agile and vibrant youths. In them, the portrait of endurance and perseverance exudes, laced in the dogged determination to conquer the challenges of life. But most times, they are not properly to arrive at the destination of a purposeful and worthy life.

Therefore, it is the first time, Nigerian youths have found a friend, an ally, a partner and boss in the incumbent Director-General (DG) of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brigadier General Shuaibu Ibrahim.  Since he became NYSC’s DG, the   young Army officer has dispensed himself as a formidable plank for youths of Nigeria to realize their full potentials in order to become assets to the nation, rather than miscreants.

Brigadier Gen. Shuaibu Ibrahim has undeniably proven himself as an agent of transformation, a reformer, an innovator and pacesetter in leadership. He has spared nothing to reposition the NYSC and in ensuring corps members are genuinely guided. Now, Nigerians are delighted to see the ingenuity embedded in Nigerian youths serving in the NYSC scheme, maximally exploited for their personal development and nation-building.

A peek into the administration of Shuaibu Ibrahim as DG NYSC for these past months shows a progressive trend of solid legacies and unshakable commitment to his avowal of rescuing a pivotal scheme which was almost paralyzed. The aims and objectives of the NYSC scheme have been his sacred book and at every point and everywhere, NYSC is now noticed with the badge of a rebirthed scheme.

The welfare and social security of corps member is not only of paramount concern, but a top priority in the policies of the NYSC boss.  His consistent preachments to corps members have always been that they should consider anywhere duty beckons for the primary assignment as their birthplace and ancestral abode. To him, everywhere is the home of every Nigerian.

He has guaranteed the financial security of   Nigerian youths serving the country under the NYSC scheme. Brigadier Gen. Ibrahim fought relentlessly to ensure the   implementation of the new National Minimum Wage (NMW) of N30, 000 monthly. Every corper now collects N33,000 (thirty-three thousand) as monthly allowance and it is paid promptly, despite the economic crunch. And through subtle persuasions, the NYSC boss has been able to convince employers of the services of corps members in augmenting the Government pay package with some stipends.  And the respond has been tremendous.

A foresighted stickler to standards anywhere he serves his country, Ibrahim provides leadership for the scheme in very exceptional ways. He thinks more about a rewarding future for Nigerian youths than the realities of today and has silently launched a variety of economic empowerment programmes to assist them to become responsible citizens by utilizing it to clutch the niceties of tomorrow.

Obsessed with this agenda, as soon as he was appointed the DG NYSC, Shuaibu Ibrahim engaged the International Labour Organization’s (ILO), Abuja country office in Nigeria in mutual talks. It was in pursuit of the economic empowerment of Nigerian youths who have passed through the scheme.  His reception and outcomes of the parlays with ILO were commendable.

The mission of strengthening and deepening relations with ILO to open windows of utilizing the potentials of youths’ empowerment through employment and entrepreneurship skills development in Nigeria were not an effort in vain. These trips have yielded amazing dividends to corps members through ILO’s ‘Start and Improving Your Business (SIYB) Management Programme.’

Brigadier Gen. Ibrahim has also elevated the NYSC’s “Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) initiative to a new realm, by utilizing the creative ingenuity and productivity of corpers. The greatest success narratives of the scheme now is that through SAED, NYSC under the leadership of Ibrahim, sought and stabilized ways of generating internal revenue to fund some of its operations. Corpers were trained and mastered various crafts within the one-year duration of the scheme.   

NYSC has reactivated its formerly silent commercial values and strength. It now operates its bread factory and table water company in Kubwa, Abuja.  And the NYSC boss has plans to replicate same in   states of the federation. It is an uncommon innovation and a gradual path to NYSC’s financial independence in the nearest future.

To further fortify and expand its investments web, some corpers are trained in fish and snail farming in NYSC farms. Most of them started practicing the skills before they were discharged from the service. So, NYSC farms across the nation are no longer dormant territories, as even rice cultivation and other agric-based businesses are undertaken by corpers, as the scheme’s response to local content policy of the FGN, in what the DG hopes to keep expanding in order “…to internally generate our revenue.”

The global outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic in 2020 was a tough period, not only for the NYSC, but Nigerians generally. But Brigadier Gen. Ibrahim provided a patriotic, astute and focused leadership when it was most needed. The greatest joy engineered by Ibrahim was that throughout the period of the raging Covd-19 pandemic, no corper’s life was risked to Covid-19 or snatched by the cold hands of death because of the epidemic.  The religiously strict enforcement of all Covid-19 social protocols in camps and other places of congregation by corps members became a golden rule.

Therefore, whilst Nigeria bled under the yoke of the Covid-19 pandemic, NYSC members were reoriented and mobilized to join the league of other Nigerians working to salvage their nation by rendering the needed sensitive services. The NYSC boss created a historic record. He ensured corps members nationwide were activated in battling the Covid-19 pandemic. So, corpers produced face masks, sanitizers, disinfectant tools, and automatic sanitizing machines as their national contribution in battling the Covid-19 pandemic.

This was in addition to a vigorous and robust public sensitization campaigns as well as active participation in distribution of Government palliatives to various communities in the country. It was the first of its kind in the annals of Nigeria’s history that corpers were mobilized to play a focal role in a national emergency.  It never happened in the days of Ebola outbreak.

It has excited everyone that corpers have marketed themselves as assets to the nation, rather than liabilities at a season of tribulations in the country, spurred by the Covid-19 epidemic.  Today, through the worthy and purposeful leadership of Brigadier General Ibrahim, the seasons of NYSC orientation camps have been fully restored throughout the country. 

And with Ibrahim still on board, even the Covid-19 phase II has posed no worrisome threat to this aspect of the scheme.  He started his leadership of the NYSC on a sound footing and has sustained the tempo; expanded the productive tentacles of corpers in unimaginable ways. By his impactful ideas, millions of Nigerian youths are assured of a brighter tomorrow and economic independence after the mandatory national service.

Olasanmi wrote this article from Abuja.