The Federal Government of Nigeria is working on restructuring the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to improve diaspora participation in the scheme.
This information is based on the disclosure of the Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, during a Ministerial Presentation of the 2023 budget, held on Wednesday in Abuja.
As revealed by the Minister, the current practice which mandates Nigerian students who have schooled abroad to partake in the scheme within three years of graduation has been discouraging. New plans for the scheme is to revise that condition, making it more flexible for diaspora inclusion in the scheme.
According to her, the NYSC Act would need to be changed for the diaspora graduates to join the national service program at a period that is convenient for them. The proposed change would also let diaspora corps members to launch small and medium-sized companies with an emphasis on creating jobs and luring remittances from the diaspora while they still receive the NYSC certificate after the scheme’s one-year duration.
Sunday Dare, the Minister of Youth and Sport, who virtually joined the program, claimed that the NYSC scheme itself is currently the subject of a bigger review that is being conducted by a committee.
The reorganization of the NYSC scheme is a component of the government’s continuous initiatives to promote job growth and foreign capital inflow into the nation.
The minister went on to say that the Federal Government is looking at more measures that will improve the ease of doing business in the nation in addition to initiatives to spur job creation and economic growth. She stressed that doing this will help SMEs and startups, particularly those operating in the financial, entertainment, and arts industries. She said, “We are also looking at restructuring the NYSC to support the diaspora scheme, which is being considered to create jobs and facilitate inbound capital and investments into the economy.”
