BY CALEB AYANSINA

ABUJA -IMAGE makers of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, have been charged to evolve strategies to build and sustain the good and strong corporate image for the scheme to restore public confidence, in view of security challenges in the country.

The Director General of the Scheme, Brig. Gen Nnamdi Okore-Affia wants the Public Relation Officers of NYSC to “sustain the good corporate image of the NYSC earned through years of persistent worthy contributions to national development”.

Okore-Affia who gave the charge Tuesday at the 2011 NYSC training workshop for Public Relation Officers in Abuja said NYSC must tackle the security threat, especially as posed by the aftermath of the 2011 general election for the scheme to maintain its pride of place.

His words: “the workshop is to once again take stock of our achievements, challenges and prospects in sustaining the good corporate image of the NYSC. This becomes necessary in the face of recent experiences thrown up by the diverse interplay of relationships that are essential in the discharge of our core mandate of promoting national unity, integration and development”.

“Critical among these relationships was our partnership with INEC for the last general elections that brought the scheme national and global acclaim but also left some sour taste in our mouth.

“The killing of ten precious corps members in the post-election violence in the north led to hard-biting criticism from our publics and queried the existence of our dear scheme. It is in this regard that the theme of this year’s workshop: ’Sustaining Good Corporate image for the NYSC in Contemporary Times’ is both timely and apt.

“With its unique presence in all the local government areas of the country, the NYSC stands as a potent instrument for grassroots-oriented development, which is currently the global choice development paradigm.

“The scheme has remained a dominant skilled manpower provider to the nooks and crannies of the country for the past 38 years and continues to positively impact on education, health, economic and social sectors of the national economy.

“The place of training and re-training of the manpower of any organization cannot be overemphasized and management will continue to support the training of staff for optimal performance and effective service delivery to our clients.

However, Participants at the seminar condemned a situation where the NYSC state coordinators see PROs of their states as a mere artisan who have nothing to contribute but just to get public address system read for event.

“The state coordinators should be told what PR is all about, they believe that PR job is just about getting Public address system ready for occasion. Allocation to PRO units is always between accountant and the state coordinator.

“All the years they ask for our impute into budgetary making but you will not be allowed to have asses to it, OBS is the life wire of orientation camp, they don’t know how you run it and when all thing go on well, the glory goes to the state coordinator and when there is a problem you don’t know your job, they don’t want to know how you do it”, the participants complained