Television Nigerian

The National Youth Service Corps, NYSC has been commended for its leadership styles in overcoming critical challenges facing the Nation.

The scheme was particularly eulogized for its interventions in the areas of Covid-19 emergency interventions and thinking outside the box towards fighting the pandemic in the country.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of a two day public discourse on reinforcing critical institutions for National Development and sustainability in Abuja, an educationist, Professor  Sam Okpe lauded the efforts of institutions such as the NYSC and the Joint Admission snd Matriculation Board, JAMB in maintaining its relevance in the country.

Okpe said  when COVID-19 broke out, the NYSC scheme was suspended due to restrictions on movement and fear of the health risks to corps members.

He said shortly after the lifting of the ban on restrictions, the scheme swooped into action to see ways of assisting the government to curtail the spread of the virus

He said this prompted the NYSC leadership to approach the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (now the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19) to put strategies in place for the resumption of their activities.

Okpe said first on the agenda of the committee set up which comprised mostly of NYSC and NCDC staff was to “look at strategies that will ensure the safety of corps members while  in camp to ensure that they keep building trust of the entire country, especially their guardians.”

“The team carried out a readiness and needs assessment, using a checklist, in all 37 camps in the country to ensure they were prepared to host corps members.

” As some of the camps were used as temporary isolation centres, it was important to ensure they were fit for the purpose of hosting orientation exercises. Once completed, they provided a checklist of things the camps must put in place before they could reopen”he said

Okpe said working with existing response infrastructure set up by the NCDC helped the process.

“The Disease Surveillance and Notification Officers (DSNOs) working with state epidemiologists and the Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS) were leveraged to monitor and report activities of public health importance in the camps.

“They also divided the graduates into streams to ensure no more than 800 were mobilised to be in camps at once. This is in contrast to the usual 10,000 to 20,000 before the pandemic. To further control the crowd, they were also assigned specific days to report to camp”he said.

He also added that technology played a key role in managing the process.

“Before accessing and printing their call up letters, the intending corps members were required to read NYSC guidelines developed by the NCDC and then acknowledge their willingness to adhere to them and other infection, prevention and control (IPC) guidelines, including being tested for COVID-19, before being admitted to the camps. After which they visited the SORMAS page to provide their travel history, medical history and now, their COVID-19 vaccination status. A unique code was then generated which they printed and presented at the gate, along with their call up letters.

Before being accepted into the camp, they were screened for COVID-19 using a rapid diagnostic test (RDT). Upon receiving a negative test result, corps members were able to proceed with registration while the surveillance team conducted a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test to confirm positive cases.

A social commentator, Austin Maho who also spoke at the session eulogized the role of the NYSC in leading the campaign against youth unemployment in the country.

A coalition of Northern youth groups under the aegis of Northern Ethnic Group Assembly (NEYGA) has asked the Nigerian government to stop the massive killing of people and raiding of communities in the North by bandits and Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists.

Spokesperson for the umbrella body, Mr Ibrahim Dan-Musa, said the call had become necessary over the worsening state of insecurity in the North.

He decried the unending killings in the North while calling on the Northern elite to speak out.

In a statement issued on Sunday in Kaduna, the group decried the deplorable security situation in the North and demanded the immediate removal of the National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Babagana Monguno (retd).

It lamented the inability of people from Zamfara, Kano, Kaduna and other parts of the country to access the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) due to incessant kidnappings by the bandits on highways.

The coalition called on President Muhammadu Buhari to tackle insecurity and stop the maiming and destruction of lives and property respectively.

The group, in its statement, gave a 14-day ultimatum to the Nigerian government to stop killings in the North, warning that it would be left with no option but to mobilise citizens for protests until the government is shut down.

The group lamented that five years into President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the security situation has continued to escalate, leading to massive killings and destructions.

Dan-Musa also noted that with the removal of service chiefs and changes in the police hierarchy, the only office that needs to be rejigged now is the NSA office under retired Major General Monguno.

It said Buhari had failed Nigerians who gave him massive support, believing that as a retired military General, he could tackle the security challenges bedevilling the country.

“It is on a sad note that this coalition wishes to remind the federal government and government at all levels, that the primary responsibility of government anywhere, particularly the one that was democratically elected by voters, is to protect the lives and property of citizens.

“Alas, five years into President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure, instead of reducing insecurity, it has escalated, thereby exposing great numbers of our people to avoidable deaths and loss of property in a manner that history has never witnessed before.

“As patriotic citizens, it is our constitutional duty to raise voices and call attention to the killings that are taking place across the states of the Northern region on a daily basis and mobilise citizens on how to constructively engage government at all levels and make demands to end the killings.

“The group is saying enough is enough and an end must be put to the mindless killing of our people particularly in the villages, and the non-challant attitude displayed by government and its agencies to the plights of people going through horrific experience in the hands of criminals that seemed to have overwhelmed our security agencies,” it stated.

Calling on the President to relieve the National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Monguno [retd] of his appointment immediately, NEYGA said, “We restate unequivocally that Monguno has failed to provide useful advice to address the scourging insecurity in the country and therefore does not deserve continuous stay in office.

“As a pro-Northern group, we have found it very important to call on President Buhari to remove the National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (retd), whose office and responsibilities are critical to the achievement of comprehensive security all over the country but hasn’t used the high esteem of his office in any productive ways since his appointment as NSA.

“The reason for this call is not farfetched. We believe that Maj. Gen. Monguno was part of the gross failure associated with the tenure of the former security chiefs and his continued presence in office will make the success Buhari intended to achieve with the changes very difficult, if not completely impossible.”