Stay away from orientation camps or be arrested, NYSC DG warns unqualified graduates

Shuaib Ibrahim, director-general of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), has warned that any unqualified graduate that makes himself or herself available at the orientation camp would be arrested.

Ibrahim gave the warning on Thursday, when the scheme renewed its partnership with the Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC).

The partnership is aimed to add credibility to the mobilisation process and prevent participation of fake graduates from national service.

According to NAN, the NYSC DG noted that since his assumption of office, he realised that some of the corps members were returned by their employers to NYSC on the grounds that they were not qualified to teach or some them could not read and so on.

To address the challenge, Ibrahim said the scheme partnered with NUC to organise a meeting with the registrars and student affairs officers from west African region some other African countries.

“During the interface with the Registrars and Student Affairs Officers, the scheme reiterated its position that it will not tolerate such practice,” he said.

“The good thing that came out of that meeting was that, some of the fake universities from Benin Republic were closed down and the meeting has also strengthened our understanding with NUC.“

Ibrahim emphasised that any unqualified graduate that made himself or herself available at the orientation camp would be arrested.

He also said that the scheme had arrested several numbers of fake corps members, recently in the last orientation and handed them over to the police for prosecution.

Ibrahim said the scheme also convened a meeting with vice-chancellors, rectors and NYSC mobilisation officers from universities and polytechnics, nationwide, to address the challenge.

He said the meeting was hinged on the need to add credibility on the mobilisation process in the country.

“Under my watch, I cannot tolerate any unqualified person be mobilised for the national service,“ he said.

Ibrahim said the scheme had also introduced an indemnity form for list of prospective corps members forwarded to NYSC by institutions.

He explained that in the indemnity form, the institutions would sign, affirming that the list of prospective corps members they forwarded to NYSC was genuine.

According to him, if there are infractions on the list, the institution concerned will be blacklisted from further mobilisation until they put their house together.

The NYSC boss, who disclosed that “Batch C“ orientation would commence by the end of October or first week of November, warned those with fake documents to stay away from the orientation camps.

He further disclosed that the scheme had introduced the inscription of date of birth on the certificate to prevent deliberate repeat of national service.

According to Ibrahim, NYSC has also introduce physical verification of certificates of foreign students in the six-geopolitical zones, saying that those found to be in possession of fake documents will apprehended.