The Nation Newspaper

Tag: NYSC

  • Nda-Isaiah seeks NYSC’s reform

    Nda-Isaiah seeks NYSC’s reform

    Leadership publisher and All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, has said the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) should be reformed to achieve better results.

    The publisher also said former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, is a blessing to Nigeria.

    Gen. Gowon, who celebrated his 80th birthday at the weekend, established the NYSC.

    Nda-Isaiah noted that Gen. Gowon’s efforts at ensuring that the nation healed after the civil war was the reason the nation was able to embark on a gradual recovery and prevent a reoccurrence of the war.

    The politician said the NYSC had served its purpose and needed to be reformed to meet the nation’s challenges.

    The Kakaaki Nupe said unemployment and insecurity in the land were among the biggest issues on the front burner.

    He said the NYSC should be used to find solutions to those problems.

    Nda-Isaiah suggested that the NYSC should incorporate a two-year compulsory military service into its programme for graduates to enable the nation fortify its national security and increase its defence and readiness for war.

    The presidential aspirant noted that figures from the security situation had put the numerical strength of military personnel at a little over 300,000.

    He said this was inadequate to protect a large country like Nigeria.

     

  • Stop call-up letter fee, NANS urges NYSC

    The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has finally waded into the lingering controversy over the introduction of N4,000 for call-up letters issuance, faulting the Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) directive as shocking.

    The association’s Public Relations Officer in Zone D, Jeremiah Olatinwo, in a statement, said the reason put forward by the Director-General, Brigadier-General Johnson Olawumi, to justify the fee was outrageous.

    The NYSC said the fee was introduced to improve the service delivery of NYSC to corps members. But

    Jeremiah said the explanation contravened sections of the Act establishing NYSC. He said state governors and minister of the Federal Capital Territory had statutory responsibility to make subvention available all states’ NYSC directorate to enable it cater adequately for the needs of corps members deployed to the state.

    “Every state governing board shall be required to provide such other facilities and materials, including call-up letters, uniform and jungle boots to corps members,” he said.

    He added that there was no provision that asked corps members to undertake any financial obligation to the National Youth Service, advising NYSC to retract the “anti-masses policy”.

    He appealed to the Federal Government to force the NYSC directorate to terminate the imposed fee, saying it was against the purpose for which the National Youth Service was established.

    Meanwhile, Jeremiah congratulated the recently-elected national leadership of the body led by Tijani Usman, a student of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Kaduna State.

    He advised the new leadership to shun enmity and promote cooperation among members.

     

  • Not a scam

    Not a scam

    •The N4,000 NYSC charge should be included in its budget in subsequent years

    Sometimes the line between fairness and tyranny is so thin that one is overshadowed by the other. Such seems the case in the enduring furore over the charge of four thousand Naira to National Youth Service Corps members to pick up their call-up letters.

    The narrative, often dwarfed by any other voice, is that the NYSC top brass has decided to filch the hapless corps members of the sum of money. They earn in each of their twelve months of service the sum of about N18,000. This is a paltry sum by any standards. Corps members know that this sum hardly affords them a place to lay their heads. The elite among them are those who come from well-heeled homes or who enjoy support systems from family, family friends or who serve in companies with liberal packages. These are few. The corps members are made to believe that their country expects a sense of service from them and not luxury. Four thousand Naira is therefore a huge sum for any corps member to pay for any service.

    In a nation where the governing and political elites are perceived as alienating, a climate of cynicism and doubt overwhelms this community of young Nigerians. So the directive from the NYSC top brass that they pay N4,000 seemed not only exploitative, but also cynical.

    But the story was not well-received because it was not properly understood. The NYSC says it is not compulsory that corps members should pay the sum. It is a convenience policy. Those who prefer not to pay would be required to travel from their various homes to their universities to pick up their letters. That had in the past created logistical barriers. Intending corps members have to travel, in quite a few cases, long distances to pick up the letters. In such cases, it may even be more expensive.

    For instances, a student of the Obafemi Awolowo University who is domiciled in Sokoto would have to undertake the long-distance sojourn to Ile-Ife. Under the new arrangement, he or she would only need to spend money – that is, N4,000 – to obtain a scratch card and obtain the same document. It will clearly cost the student a lot more than N4,000 for a return journey to Ile-Ife in Osun State, a journey that would include costs like feeding and overnight stay in addition to transportation.

    On the other hand, a student of the University of Lagos who resides in Yaba which is in the same district with the university has no reason to pay the money. The student can walk to the institution and pick up the document free of charge within an hour or two.

    The NYSC has said that it introduced the measure without any budgetary allocation. So, in order to ensure the convenience of the corps members it propounded the idea. It is working with a private firm, whose infrastructure will facilitate the access to the scratch cards. This is a good idea. But the NYSC should ensure that in subsequent years, the agency incorporates this policy into its budget. This will avoid the upheaval that the measure has inspired.

    Given the high scale of corruption in the country, government officials should understand it is not enough that you are just but you must be seen to be just, especially if it concerns charging the citizens sums of money. The NYSC N4,000 charge is not extortionate, but young Nigerians have lived to see exploitation all around them. Their teachers did it in obtaining class lecture notes, in passing their tests and examinations and accessing a few other routine entitlements. They also witnessed the recent tragic episode of the immigration job scam. Hence they saw NYSC charges in that light.

    The NYSC authorities clearly don’t seem in this instance to join that corrupt wagon. They, however, should incorporate it into their budget next year.

     

  • Commissioner hails corps member

    THE Ogun State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Olaokun Soyinka, has hailed a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member, Dr. Anuri Emeh, for the  beautification and flooring of Agbado Health Centre in Agbado-Ijaiye, Ogun State.

    Soyinka, who spoke at the inauguration of the project, said it was commendable.

    He said a conducive environment was essential in health care delivery.

    The commissioner, who was represented by Dr. Akindele Adeyemi, praised the corps member for the project.

    His words: “What Dr. Emeh has done is commendable. Having seen the state of the health centre, he decided to make a change.”

    Emeh said he embarked on the project as part of his community development service, because the health centre was usually waterlogged and accident-prone.

  • NYSC online mobilisation: Again, a storm in a tea cup

    NYSC online mobilisation: Again, a storm in a tea cup

    I must confess that I am not at all disappointed by the unsavory reactions that greeted the planned N4,000 mobilisation fee by the National Youth Service Corps for prospective corps member. Most of Rate- laden commentaries in the media came from the well established traditional critics of the scheme which at every opportunity see the 41- year- old corps as having outlived its relevance and should be disbanded.

    One of the areas where the scheme had faced scathing criticism recently is the mobilisation process which starts from the corps- producing institutions with the compilation and processing of student’s data and culminates in the production and issuance of the call- up letter by the NYSC. The service corps had been made to understand rightly, that many corps members had died in the process of the shuttling between their homes and their institutions trying to get their call- up numbers and later the call – up letters. Very often the critics referred to the successes recorded by among others, the West African Examination Council (WACE) and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in their operations to ease registration and accessing results by their candidate in the comfort of their homes and asked the NYSC to take a cue. It is therefore, uncharitable all in the name of criticising to refer to the decision as planned imposition of online registration fee.

    The innovation of the aforementioned bodies which was achieved through public private partnership (PPP) policy applauded by the stakeholders and public is the same now being roundly rejected in the case of the NYSC. Whereas the WAEC and JAMB charge fees outside the online service, this is the first time the NYSC is asking prospective corps member to part with their money to pay for a service which is beyond its capability to render free of charge.

    Even when the NYSC management has made a statement to the effect that the service was optional, some pseudo mathematicians have already calculated that the scheme would be “smiling to the bank with no less than 1.2 billion every year” so, even if only one hundred or one thousand subscribed to the service in a year, the vault of NYSC must be overflowing with N1.2 billion.

    I don’t know much about the organisation called Education Rights Campaign, ERC but part of its statement quoted in the write-up in The Punch of Tuesday, September 23 , 2014 page 43 reads: “progress should mean easing of burden; not the other way round. More so technology to be deployed for the online registration and processing of call-up letters by prospective corps members is not something from heaven. The technology exists here in Nigeria. It is the same technology already used for online registration in schools and it is beyond what the NYSC, which has enormous annual budgets, can provide at no extra cost…”

    One would readily agree with the ERC that progress should mean easing of burden and how else could the NYSC ease the burden of the mobilisation process for prospective corps if not by reducing the tedium and hazards associated with the process. The rest of the statement above is merely pedestrian assumption often resorted to by lazy and ill or uninformed unionist and critics wherever they wanted to play to the gallery. The technology already exists here in Nigeria. True. But, is it free or cheap? “It is the same technology already used for online registration in schools. Which schools? For free? Or how much? That it is not beyond what the NYSC, which has an ENORMOUS annual budget (emphasis online) can provide at as extra cost. “In an era when information is readily and promptly given on demand by government ministries and agencies, this is a great disservice to the public who would have wanted to know the enormity the budget and its  breakdown so as to determine what amount is available to render the proposed online mobilisation “at no extra cost” but which NYSC Board and management were trying to pocket by charging a fee for the service.

    The public private partnership (PPP) model is being used by many public institution and organisations in the country to render efficient, effective and affordable service for which they lack the requisite human and material capital. This is exactly what the Board and Management of the NYSC are trying to do after many years of consultations with stakeholders

    The managers of the scheme are Nigeria who are deeply aware of the challenges parent face in trying to give their children tertiary education. I do want to believe that decision to introduce the fee-paying online mobilisation for prospective corps member after duly testing the waters is ‘venal clandestine, criminal or fraudulent as some of the commentators claimed. If the fee is considered too high, the corps should be advised or even prevailed upon to meet with its partners to discuss a downward review. But I think the introduction of the online mobilisation has come at the right time.

    I  also want to think that we should address issues on their own merit. I wouldn’t know what the killing of corps members in Plateau and Bauchi States have to do with the proposed online mobilisation fee or the scheme itself. Most Nigerians, from opinion polls conducted from time, to time, lauded the introduction of the scheme.

    I challenge anybody or group who disagrees with this to conduct their own independent popularity poll and be courageous enough to publish their findings. Those who were responsible for the killing of the corps members in Plateau and Bauchi States, reprehensible criminal acts which have become criticism reference point, do not reside in the NYSC. They are people who have suddenly realised in their own warped estimation that we can no longer live together as one united country. When the Yakubu Gowon administration created the NYSC in 1973 after the 30-month civil war it was to evolve a Nigeria where every citizen would take as home wherever he lived. Forty one years after, there is hardly anybody to speak up for Nigeria; the voices mostly heard are those for ethnicity or religion. Those who instigated the killing of corps members in Plateau and Bauchi States carried out ethnic and religious agenda.

    Is it the fault of the NYSC managers that the programme has been “adulterated”? At inception for example, the orientation programme used to hold according to the time table without outside interference. Today, the scheme can no longer hold the orientation course during the month of Ramadan in order not to incur the wrath of the Sultan of Sokoto and the Muslim leadership as if the exercise would strip the participants of their holiness.

    This writer had their orientation course in the month of Ramadan in August 1978 at the Argungu Fishing Festival Village in the Old Sokoto State and I remember we visited the then Sultan Abubukar Sidiqque and he had words of encouragement for us. He did not raise issues with the NYSC authorities for conducting the exercise during the Muslims’ holy month.

    The scheme was free to deploy corps members without any hindrance, but today there are long lists of request from all segments of the society-right from the presidency down to the smallest group-dictating where such corps members should be deployed. The records are at the NYSC Directorate Headquarters should any group or individuals disagree with this assertion.

    Is this any reason why you would want the NYSC scrapped? Then you must also call for the scrapping of almost all the public institutions and agencies of government. Many of the graduates from universities and polytechnics now can hardly express themselves in good English. We are being told of soldiers sent to the war front to fight the enemy but who tactically found themselves elsewhere. All these because of the external interference in the admission and recruitment exercise respectively, for example. Do we scrap the institution? I guess your answer is no. The problem with our public institutions are not created by the managers; they are by those who think those institutions must always do their biddings even if they are not in the national interest. And unless this culture of disregard of national aspiration is tamed we would continue to shift blames for our failures.

    •Abdulwaheed Obomeile

    Senior Citizen writes from Akure

    Abdulwahabohio@yahoo.com

  • Rumour mill and the NYSC fee

    Nigerians are a funny lot. Oh, do I even say we are funny? I think we are simply unique. We always claim we are enlightened, yet we don’t seem to put that into use when dealing with certain social and political issues. Is there any country where rumour mongering thrives the way it does in Nigeria? I seriously doubt. At times, when you see an educated person discussing an issue that he does not have facts and figures on, simply ask him a simple question: have you tried to find out the true position of things? He is likely to shrug his shoulders and tell you that everyone, including himself, is discussing it.

    For many, this is likely to be the case with the ‘raging’ controversy surrounding the decision by the management of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, to ask prospective corps members to buy a scratch card with which to download their call-up letters online. NYSC, acording to the rumour mill,  asked them to pay N4000 before they could collect their call-up letters; in other words,  pay N4000 to serve their country. At least, that is the version of the story that the rumour mill was feeding members of the public. Do I say that your truly was also sucked in by the story? Yeah, I was. But I just decided to go a step further. Why should a body like the NYSC charge prospective corps members such amount of money all because they wanted to get their call-up letters? But wait a minute, do most Nigerians double-check before going to town over an issue?

    These are the things I was able to find out concerning the call-up letter imbroglio. The most significant is that NYSC gave options – in fact, two options. A prospective corps member can buy scratch card and go online and do all the things he or she needs to do so that he or she already has his or her table ready before getting to the camp. This option includes doing registration online (which usually takes at least 36 hours in the camp upon reporting) and then downloading the call-up letter and even the biometrics would have been done online. The other option is that the prospective corps member goes to her school where he or she has just finished, and then picks up his or her call-up letter by hand and then proceeds to the state where he or she has been posted to. If I am not making a mistake here, I think this is very straightforward and the choice, if again I am correct, is that of the prospective corps member: you can either raise the N4000 and then proceed to the cyber café beside your house and do everything online or go to your school and pick up your call-up letter and proceed to your orientation camp.

    Does the NYSC have some fault here? Yes, it surely does. And that fault stems from the fact that not enough information and communication were provided as far as this novel idea is concerned. People resist change and that is natural. But that change becomes doubly challenging when it comes with parting with your hard-earned money. Clearly, the idea of asking people to pay to collect their call-up letters will surely raise eyebrows, mainly because it represents a departure from the norm. Most of us who did that mandatory one-year national youth service are aware that we just went to the universities and polytechnics where we finished and picked up our call-up letters. And may I also say that it was easier then. No insecurity like this and one could sleep even by the roadside, if stranded, with both eyes closed. If you were to fear anything, perhaps it had to be natural elements.

    However, I think we need to look at the issue from what we call opportunity cost and alternative foregone in elementary economics. If convenience and safety are the names of the game, which option will someone who finished from, say the University of Benin, but who resides in Lagos, pick? Brave the elements, square up with the inherent dangers and hit the Benin-Ore expressway to go and pick his or her call up letter or just raise N4000 and buy the scratch card? In fact, if this option of a scratch card was available when I was to go for my orientation camp at the Black Gold Orientation Camp, Kaduna, some 18 years ago, I would have grabbed it with both hands. I finished from the then Ondo State University, Ado-Ekiti and I came to Lagos immediately after finishing with my clearance. When the NYSC call-up letter came, I had to hit the road to Ado-Ekiti where I picked up the letter. I then came back to Lagos again before proceeding to Kaduna. You can imagine the stress!

    I have deliberately brought up these options and my own personal experience to let Nigerians know that at times, we do not look at the larger picture when we are passing judgment. This is by no means a case of trying to help NYSC plead its case. I want to believe the body has enough hands in its public affairs department to tackle the issue. But this write-up aims to deal with two issues simultaneously. And those issues are the fact that Nigerians should always get their facts right before condemning any policy by any government agency. Can government be trusted in this part of the world? I seriously doubt that. In fact, going by the unsavoury experience of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment fiasco, every Nigerian has all the reasons in the world to be circumspect when asked by government agency to pay for any service.

    In this regard, I can understand the indifference. But indifference is again quite different from deliberately consuming misinformation when technology has made life less miserable for us when it comes to information gathering and verification. It is high time we collectively dried up the oil that keeps the rumour mill running in our society. Again, I am not deluding myself that the handlers of the rumour mill would not have another issue to feast on tomorrow whenever they consider the NYSC N4000 controversy too stale to keep on the front burner. They will surely have. And in most cases, it has to do with one government decision or the other. That is the nature of the society we live in. But we can change it.

    And in ending this, I still go back to the main issue: the NYSC N4000 call-up letter ‘fee’. As earlier stated, the issue here is that of commonsense: will you spend N4000 and get your call-up letter within the confines of your sitting room (if you have internet connection in your house) or go to your university and pick it? It is a choice that is purely that of the person involved. The key issue here, as I have found out, is that NYSC is not forcing any prospective NYSC member to buy into that option and that is the main reason why the controversy surrounding the issue is needless.

     

    • Adefeso writes from Lagos
  • Why NYSC DG must go now

    Why NYSC DG must go now

    It was Edmund Burke, who said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” This truism succinctly described the silence in many quarters while youths of this country are being swindled by people who are supposed to provide everything they need to survive.

    I raise my voice to condemn the barbaric, obnoxious and anti-people policy of Brigadier -General Johnson Olawumi, the Director General of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), who introduced N4,000 fee for graduates to pay before collecting their call-up letters for National Youth Service.

    We are yet to be told a cogent reason why corps member must pay any fee at all to get their call-up letters. This shows the agency is being turned to revenue-generating outfit for the government, which is against the law setting up the NYSC in the first place. I have once said that NYSC is an irrational organisation that is being run to clueless officials. The introduction of the call-up letter fee vindicates my earlier stand and it shows the body is drowning organisation crying for a lifeline.

    With the introduction of fee, we can now see that the Olawumi-led NYSC is insensitive to the plight of the impoverished masses? The Director-General is a misfit, who does not have anything to add to the office he is holding. Why should he ask unemployed people to pay such amount? This tells me that the NYSC has now moved from bad to worst.

    Attempt by the NYSC Director of Corps Mobilisation, Anthony Ani, to justify the obnoxious fee could be likened to whitewashing the putrid sepulchre. Nothing is done to reverse the ill-conceived policy which will still cause imbalance in the NYSC scheme. By asking graduates to pay, it is clear that the scheme has outlived its relevance. It has now become a platform to exploit Nigerians.

    I will appeal to President Goodluck Jonathan to immediately sack Brigadier General Olawumi for his gross incompetence. He should be booted out of office without further delay.

    It is, indeed, an insult to every Nigerian that while millions of naira is being allocated to the NYSC via Ministry of Youth Development budget, some people in the organisation still believe collecting money from graduates would sustain the scheme. What about the funds allocated to feeding at the orientation camps, which could not be done because of Ebola outbreak? Yet, the  DG is coming out to demand for money from jobless youths.

    Serving the fatherland has really caused tears and heartache to many youths. I have a personal sad story to share. I was posted to Sokoto State for the compulsory one-year service. On my way to the state, I was robbed by armed robbers after the vehicle I was traveling in got involved in a ghastly accident in which I broke a part of my hip.

    Up till now, I still walk with the aid of clutches. NYSC never showed modicum of concern about my well-being. Throughout the time I had operations on my hip, I only saw some NYSC officials once. There are many corps members who are in life-threatening situation because of the National Service. Olawumi and his insensitive officials are not concerned. They are not after the welfare of Nigerians but just on their own.  I urge every youth to rise up and ensure that this anti-people policy is rescinded by the leadership of NYSC, a sinking body looking for straw (the poor money) to stay alive.

     

    Sheyi is a Master’s student at the University of Leeds, UK

  • Stop exploiting graduates, Muslim Society tells NYSC

    Stop exploiting graduates, Muslim Society tells NYSC

    Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria (MSSN), Lagos State Area Unit, has accused the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) of exploiting graduates by charging them N4,000 for printing of call-up letters.

    Graduates that are being mobilised for the next batch of the National Youth Service are paying the money as requirement to get their postings.

    While hailing the NYSC for introducing online registration, they said asking graduates to pay amount before mobilisation indicated that the government was no longer interested in sponsoring education.

    The MSSN Amir (president), Kaamil Kalejaiye, urged NYSC not to become a profit-making body. He advised the directorate to look for other means of generating revenue rather than placing the burden on graduates.

    He said: “This is another open betrayal from our government. Why should someone who wants to go and serve his fatherland pay so much for a journey he is forced to go? Where do they expect a student who suffered and managed to graduate from the decaying system get such money? NYSC must realise that having finished a degree course does not mean that you have a job. So, where do they want the thousands of jobless Nigerian students to get N4, 000?

    “Another thing that bothers our mind is how the NYSC came about the N4,000 charges. Is it for maintenance of the website or administrative task that has earlier been catered for? What does NYSC want to use N4,000 from the over 10,000 corps members do? Since the Federal Government is sponsoring the programme, there is no need for this. Government should be alive to its responsibility. The money is unjustifiable.”

    Kalejaiye urged probe into the activities of the NYSC, saying attempts to monetise the scheme must be rejected by everybody. He also described as annoying the justification made by the NYSC Director of Press and Public Relations, Mrs Olubunmi Aderibigbe, who said online registration was optional.

    Kalejaiye said: “We expect anti-corruption agencies would swing into action by probing the activities of NYSC. This is a clear signal that corruption looms in the horizon of NYSC. How the website contract was given, how much it cost and what it takes to maintain it must be made open. NYSC is not a profit-making body. We urge Nigerian lawmakers and stakeholders to check the activities of the NYSC to avoid exploitation like we had during the ill-conceived Nigerian Immigration Service employment.”

    MSSN urged the directorate to stop victimisation of Muslim female corps members, saying: “The constitution guarantees their freedom to practise their religion anywhere and anytime.”

  • The rush to judgment on NYSC fee

    SIR: Like many Nigerians, I was on the verge of joining protests against what I had erroneously thought were exploitative steps being taken by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) over the online registration of prospective corps members. My thoughts were shaped and fuelled by the outrage expressed by others who queried why graduates should pay N4000 to serve their fatherland. The eagerness to join the bandwagon was fired by preponderance of opinion that outrightly condemns the move.

    Fortunately for me I decided to do a little fact finding before weighing in or adding my voice to the outcry. The NYSC official portal happened to be one of the sources for this research and alas I discovered I was on the verge of barking up the wrong tree.

    As I discovered from the statement on the site, the N4000 for printing of call up letter was not mandatory for all prospective corps members of Batch C 2014 even though all intending corps members must register online. I had to severally re-read the portion of the statement that said “those who wish to collect their call-up letters from their institution need not pay the Four Thousand Naira (¦ 4,000.00) after the online registration” just to be sure I am not getting the message mixed up. There were options, choices that allow graduates to return to their schools and pick up their call-up letters the old school way or to access and print the letter online.

    This discovery from reading the original version of the statement announcing the introduction of the fee for those wishing to access and print out their call-up letters completely disarmed me and with that the desire to join the fray completely evaporated. This for me is an eye opener to what is fast becoming an entrenched culture of rushing to join issues without properly understanding what is at stake.

    Hopefully, the experience that would result from the 2014 Batch C would highlight the inherent benefits in the computerisation of the call-up process such that it would have gained widespread acceptance for the 2015 Batch A. Anyone who has passed through the NYSC scheme will admit that the manual process is at best chaotic and could do with this innovation.

    It is noteworthy that the NYSC has reassured that those who elect not to use this service will not be victimised or punished in any way. This is a promise that the organisation must live up to. It should make the operation of the platform as seamless as possible so that prospective corps members have incentives to adopt it.

     

    • Ayinde Kareem,

    Abeokuta, Ogun State

     

  • NYSC won’t force online registration on corps members, says DG

    NYSC won’t force online registration on corps members, says DG

    The Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig-Gen. Johnson Bamidele Olawumi yesterday said the scheme won’t force online registration on prospective corps members.

    He said the registration is optional and any corps member who cannot afford the N4, 000 levy, can collect his or her call-up letters from respective institutions.

    Bamidele made the clarifications while responding to questions on the new Online Registration Policy of the NYSC in Abuja.

    He said: “The initiative was designed with all sense of fairness and sensitivity. It is not extortionist, as extortion implies the use of open or subtle threat.

    “No open or subtle threat is involved here. It is not compulsory and non-use of it carries no sanction. It is only for those who choose to exercise the option after doing their own cost-benefit analysis.

    “NYSC is sensitive to the fact that not everyone needs or can afford this. Both those who need and can afford it and those who don’t need it or can’t afford it are given options to choose from. The initiative is thus both fair and sensitive.

    Asked why the NYSC cannot maintain the status quo, Bamidele added: “Contrary to claims, the status quo remains. NYSC has not abolished the practice of prospective corps members going to their schools to pick call-up letters. That is still allowed.

    “What has happened is that an extra option has been introduced, which prospective corps members may choose or may not choose to exercise.

    “Closing this new option will not necessarily be at zero cost to those who prefer the status quo, as prospective corps members have always been responsible for picking their call-up letters.

    “But closing the option will be at the expense of those who will prefer it as this will rob them of their right to choose.”

    The NYSC DG also explained how the scheme arrived at the N4, 000 rate and the inherent advantages.

    He added: “The N4000 is not just for printing call-up letters. It is for the entire package of online registration, which requires the deployment of IT hardware and software and personnel to orientation camps all over the country, but which also gives those who subscribe to it the advantage of processing their registration online, saving time during registration at the orientation camps and allowing them to use their thumbprints to identify themselves in case they lose or are dispossessed of their call-up letters.

    “In the past, corps members who lose or are dispossessed of their call-up letters had to go through a cumbersome process of swearing affidavits, getting validation from their schools which takes time and may force them to enlist on another batch.

    “With online registration, those who are unfortunate to lose their letters can identify themselves with their fingerprints. So the N4000 fee is for the entire process and package of benefits.”

    “It is not true that corps members are being asked to pay to serve their country. Far from it. The NYSC and the government appreciate the enormous sacrifice that corps members have made, and continue to make, for the unity and the development of this country.

    “The Scheme will continue to explore ways to ensure that corps members serve the nation in safety and with ease. This latest initiative was conceived in that spirit.

    “Based on feedbacks and requests from past corps members, the initiative was designed to lessen the costs and risks associated with corps members traveling to their schools to pick up call-up letters.”