The Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig. Gen. Yushau Ahmed, has urged employers to always ensure adequate security and welfare of corps members posted to their establishments.

Ahmed said this during the 2023 corps employers’ workshop held on Tuesday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

He said that the workshop was aimed at discussing issues germane to corps members’ welfare, security, and the general operations of the scheme for optimal productivity.

The director-general said that the workshop’s theme: “Optimising the productivity of corps members through enhanced welfare and security during the service year”, was carefully selected.

Represented by the NYSC South-West Coordinator, Mr Julius Amusan, Ahmed said that this was in realisation of the challenges confronting corps members in their places of primary assignment.

“I will charge this forum to come up with enduring solutions to constant threats to corps members’ security, rapid decline in welfare of corps members, and poor working environment, among others.

“The 2023 edition of the Corps Employers’ Workshop should, therefore, be another viable platform to collectively rekindle and reinvigorate this duty,” he said.

In his remarks, the NYSC Coordinator in Oyo State, Mr Abel Odoba, noted that the scheme was being confronted with new emerging challenges as it kept expanding.

Odoba outlined major challenges facing the scheme, including corps rejection, under-utilisation of corps members, and inadequate welfare provision, such as accommodation and transport allowance.

According to him, field inspectors have been put on their toes, as they are made to pay regular inspection visits to corps locations while ensuring that absentee corps members are duly sanctioned.

He said that corps employers were expected to act as ‘locos parentis’ to the corps members serving under them.

Odoba said that it was undermining for any employer to be found liable in aiding and abetting truancy, absenteeism, and evasion from service by corps members.

“It is also expedient for corps employers to make adequate budgetary provisions for the welfare of the corps members whose services would be needed,” he said.

Oyo State Commissioner for Youths and Sports, Miss Wasilat Adegoke, urged the participants to carefully deliberate on the issues pertaining to the theme of the workshop.

Adejoke, who was represented by the Director, Youths Development in the ministry, Mrs Kuburat Mustafa, assured that the NYSC scheme would continue to enjoy the support of the current administration in the state.

In her presentation, the guest lecturer, Dr Olufunke Adetuberu, a life coach, implored employers to be intentional in dealing with corps members by letting them understand the dynamics of life.

“Corps employers should be ready to meet the mental, emotional, and psychological wellbeing of corps members serving in their organisations.

“Our government also must provide an enabling environment and encourage our youths, as we are losing strength as a nation due to large numbers of our youths running abroad for greener pastures,” she said.