Alh. Abdullahi Jikamshi, Nasarawa State Coordinator of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has tasked corp employers on proper utilisation of the corp members posted to their organisations for community development.
The Coordinator made the call during a courtesy visit to the Nasarawa State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) on Tuesday in Lafia.
He explained that the scheme had achieved a lot and contributed immensely towards the development of different sectors since creation of
the state in 1996.
Jikamshi further appealed to stakeholders to always make arrangement for accommodation, welfare as well as ensure the security of the corp members.
” Corps employers should make the stay of corps members posted to their organisations to make their lives worthwhile” he said.
“We do not expect you to do more for the corp members, a little welfare, accommodation and their security is enough and would make them more productive” he said.
“Lack of accommodation alone is a reason for a corp member to redeploy to other states or places where he or she will be properly taken care of,” he added.
The coordinator also said that most organisations were not properly engaging the corp members posted to them.
“When you assigned responsibility to a corp member only one or two times in a week, what do you expect him or her to do with the other days and time,” he asked.
Jikamshi further explained that corp members were all youths, full of energy and initiative to add value to the society and appealed that host communities should engage them everyday.
He said the inability to properly engage corp members was mostly the reason why some of them abscond from duty posts and engaged in unnecessary travel that often lead to unfortunate accident and kidnapping.
He appealed to the government and public spirited individuals and groups to support the scheme towards its success.
He said that community development service is the second cardinal objective of the scheme and called for support to enable the corp members add value the their host communities.
On the essence of the visit, the coordinator said the importance of journalists to the development of the society cannot be undermined, hence their decision to partner the NUJ.
“We want you to use your wide reach to disseminate information on the activities of NYSC and the good work that corp members were doing across the state,” he added.
Responding, Salihu Alkali, NUJ council Chairman in the state expressed gratitude to the management of NYSC for the visit and partnership.
He assured that journalists in the state would continue to promote the good work the scheme had been doing through news stories, special reports.
He therefore, appealed to the state and local governments as well as other individuals to support the scheme for better performance.
