NYSC DG advises corps members on self-employment

The Director General National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig.-Gen. Johnson Olawumi, has advised corps members deployed to Kwara to take the issue of entrepreneurship seriously in order to be self reliant after service. Olawumi gave the advice while performing the foundation laying ceremony for a new NYSC office complex in Ilorin. Represented at the occasion by the scheme’s Director of Human Resource Management, Mrs Rhoda Kwaki, Olawumi described the move as commendable. He said that the new office complex, when completed, would not only save cost, but would also reduce the lingering accommodation problem NYSC was facing in Ilorin. He then commended the Kwara NYSC Coordinator, Mr Henry Enyenihi, for his initiative in commencing the building of a befitting secretariat in Ilorin. Olawumi advised corps members to always look inward and engage in one skill or the other so that they could be self employed and employers of labour after their service year. Earlier, the state coordinator had told the director general that he was compelled to embark on the project when on assumption of office in September he met two quit notices on his table. These, the coordinator said, were the NYSC annex in Fate, as well as his official residence which rent was due. Enyenihi said that the building project was being financed by a consortium of banks such as Ecobank, Access Bank, UBA, First Bank, Bank of Agric, Sterling Bank and Zenith Bank. He commended the management of the banks for their cooperation with NYSC in the state and called on other partners to come to the aid of NYSC to complete the building. The coordinator said the building was scheduled for inauguration on or before May 2016. He added that the architectural drawings and designs, structural engineering drawing, as well as Bill of Quantity were produced by serving corps members. The NYSC was sharing office premises with Public Complaints Commission, Quality Assurance Bureau on Ahmadu Bello Ave, GRA Ilorin. In his goodwill message, the state’s Commissioner for Youths and Sports Development, Alhaji Bolakale Ayo, commended NYSC and the banks for the project. He urged youths and corp members to key into the change agenda of the Buhari administration and engage in entrepreneurship ventures. He said “you should always look inward for what you can do to be employers of labour, think of what you can do to contribute to Nigerian economy.’’