B rigadier-General Johnson  Bamidele  Olawumi is  the Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). He has just clocked one year in office and recently shared his experience about the scheme.  You have been the Director-General of NYSC for a year now. What will you consider the major achievements of the Scheme under your watch? 

When I came on board,  and after a careful study of  the  NYSC,  I  came up with my vision for the Scheme and with that vision came a four-point agenda. For me, everything centres on  the  welfare of corps  members and staff. What I consider my biggest achievement is the increased focus that the  welfare  of corps members now enjoys  from the Scheme. I will break this into three categories: 

Before the corps members come  in,  during their service year,  and after they leave us. We started the  online mobilisation  last year  because we found out that in the past we had  lost  some  prospective corps  members to accidents on their way to  collect their  call-up letters. That was one of the main reasons why  we started  e-mobilisation  and online processing and printing of call-up letters.

For me,  this is looking out for them  even before they  become  corps  members.  During the service year, the most critical thing in terms of welfare of corps members is  their safety and security, and this  starts from when they are in camp. We  now  have enhanced safety and security of our corps members through  increased collaboration with  all security agencies.

And I will tell you that  in spite of the numerous security challenges that we  have  had in the country, our  orientation camps  have been well protected and free of any ugly incident.  Outside of camps,  we are focused on using  technology to quickly reach and assist corps members who might be in danger. Apart from the  physical  inspectorate mechanism, which we have at the local government level, we have the NYSC mobile apps and social media platforms to monitor and address,  in real time,  challenges faced by corps members.

For instance,  I  use Twitter to  maintain daily interaction with corps members all over the country. They can reach me and that enables me to quickly respond to their problems. This is aside the fact that I made it mandatory that whenever a corps  member is sick or is  involved in an accident during the service year, we  strictly  follow  the provision of the  NYSC Act  by ensuring that all their medical expenses are paid.

For those unfortunate to sustain one form of disability or the other during their service year, we  have also inaugurated a programme to ensure that they are not abandoned  or forgotten but  are assisted to be productively engaged. Before now, all they were entitled to was an insurance payment. But we have introduced  the  NYSC  Hope Alive Programme, graciously launched recently by President Goodluck Jonathan, to give them additional  succour and support,  and  reassure them that they are not forgotten. We have also not forgotten about the welfare of NYSC staff.

What  are the major challenges that you have encountered in the last one year and what are  your  plans to surmount them?

NYSC is  an agency that depends  almost solely on government subvention. That is a major challenge. We all know that  because of competing needs, government cannot do everything, even if it loves to do so. One has to commend the government for sustaining the scheme because  a lot of money goes into it. The  fact remains that a lot of things  need  to be done but budgetary allocation to the scheme might not allow us to do them.

So that’s one major challenge for the Scheme.  We are however  looking at ways to mitigate  the shortcomings. One thing we are considering is the need to get the private sector to be more involved in funding the Scheme. 

You mentioned your vision and  your  4-point Agenda which  you have unveiled.  Why did you think the Scheme needed a new vision and agenda?

You will recall  that there was a time when there was a lot of discussions  about the relevance of NYSC. Those questioning the Scheme wanted to be sure that  NYSC was still useful,  that there was value for the scarce resources spent on it  by government, and that  the corps members served  in safety. I did some research and discussed with a lot of people within and outside NYSC after my appointment  to see how to address these concerns.

So I came up with my vision, which is: ‘to increase the impact of the Scheme and expand its value to critical stakeholders.’  The vision was designed to address the observed gaps and challenges. I believe that no one will be talking about the relevance of NYSC or not if they can feel its impact and if the various stakeholders get more value from the Scheme.

I further broke down the vision into a four-point agenda, which is: to improve the service content  of the Scheme; to  enhance the welfare and safety of corps members and staff;  to expand partnership for greater impact, funding and support;  and to increase the visibility and relevance of the Scheme.

So, how  far  have  you  gone in the implementation of the four-point agenda?

*NYSC members

The four-point agenda has been our road map. And it  has helped  in keeping us on track, especially in terms  of increasing the service content of the Scheme and improving the welfare of corps members. I will give you a few examples.

Now, corps members participate in monthly sanitation exercises across the country,  not only for cleaning but more importantly  by  sensitizing the people on the need for them to come  out and clean their surroundings.

Then we came up with another  programme tagged Health Initiative for Rural Dwellers. We realised that there are some communities across the country that do not have health facilities. These are remote communities.

We have launched that programme in Kwara State and as we speak, there are five other states in the waiting. We launched the pilot scheme in a  place called Igbo Owu in Kwara State.

What we did was that we partnered with the state government and an NGO, Royal Health Foundation. The state government gave us  the location and some  drugs, the NGO provided  ambulance and  drugs  too and mobilized the community, while  NYSC mobilized the manpower such as corps  doctors, pharmacists, laboratory scientists and others. The launching was very successful.

You talked about  NYSC  Hope Alive Programme. Why was it established and what purpose does it  serve?

The motivating factor in our establishing the  NYSC  Hope Alive Programme  stems from the  fact that when I came into the Scheme most times I read in the media about the plight of corps  members who  in the course of service  yet  get permanently disabled. And I felt that  there should be a way we can address  this. Yes, government has made provision for an insurance cover for  anybody who dies or who incurs permanent disability during the course of  the  service  year.

The insurance  cover is now  N1,000,000. But we have also recognised  that this money  is not sufficient.  We realised that we must give these young men and women something  that will give them hope about our country. And one way we could start  is to make sure no one who suffers  disability in the course of service is abandoned. That was what led to the establishment of the  NYSC  Hope Alive Programme.

It is a public-private sector driven empowerment programme designed to provide succour to corps members who become disabled during the course of the service year.  It has been flagged off. Heritage Bank gave the first beneficiaries N1.5 million each. The governor of Akwa Ibom and Ibeto Group also chipped in.  Mr President specifically said the  NYSC  Hope Alive  Progamme  is  very  dear to his heart.

Will  the post-service medical treatment  include things like prosthetics, wheelchairs and some other things that will make people whole or aid them  to function better?

Hopefully it should because we want to make that person to get integrated into the society and we want such a person to see that there is ability even in their  disability.

There are people who believe that the Scheme is still running largely on the 1973 template and that the times have changed. Whereas some people are saying it should be scrapped, some people are saying it has outlived its usefulness and it needs to be completely restructured. How may you react?

First, those saying the scheme should be  scrapped are far away from  reality. When we proposed last year that due to insecurity some corps  members should not go to camp, in some states some corps  members nearly went out demonstrating.  These young men and women look forward to service with lots of interest and passion.  That aside, that stipend they get during the service year goes a long way to sustain them for that period.

And you can imagine when there is no  such a scheme to cushion  them after leaving higher institutions.  Another aspect is that if you go to some states in the country, their educational system would collapse if there are no corps  members. We have had cases where corps  members were made acting vice principals in  some  schools because there are no teachers.So  those saying the Scheme Should  be scrapped  should  look at such situations.

When you say nothing has changed in the scheme,  I don’t think that is correct. For example in 1973 when the scheme started, there was no skill  acquisition  training.  But now there is. That is part of the restructuring. We are still thinking of ways we can use the scheme  to address present challenges beyond the original challenge of  national unity and integration.  We are now looking at how we can help with the issue of unemployment. We have been doing that with the SAED programme  but we feel with more funding we can still do more.