REFORM OF NYSC: MATTERS ARISING
Following a meeting of the Federal Executive Council(FEC) on Monday, 29th June 2026, the Federal Government approved sweeping reforms of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
Henceforth, as per the reforms which are coming fifty three (53) years after its inauguration, the NYSC will be led by a civilian while the military will continue to provide security for corps members across the country.
Hadiza Bala Usman, the Special Adviser to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Policy Coordination who spoke on the ramifications of the impending reforms, said they were designed to reposition the NYSC as a skill-oriented, productivity-driven and youth empowerment institution.
She explained that, in due course, the NYSC orientation camp will be structured in three phases, namely: the first two weeks will focus on civic responsibility; the second phase of two weeks will cover career mapping, financial literacy, business planning and access to finance; while the third phase of yet another two weeks will dwell on specialized training based on each corps member’s chosen career stream or path.
Under the new framework, corps members will select eleven (11) specialized streams. They include: Agric Corps, Medical Corps, Education Corps, Tech & Digital Corps, Legal Corps, Public Service Corps, Infrastructure Corps, Creative Economy Corps, Green Corps, Enterprise Corps, and Paramilitary and Security Corps.
The goals of these reforms, according to the government, are to focus on youth empowerment, skill development and national productivity while preserving the NYSC scheme’s pristine role of promoting national unity.
These reforms are inevitable. As a matter of fact, they ought to have occurred yesterday, especially given our realities and challenges. As far back as 2014, population experts had projected that our demographics in continental Africa would change dramatically, with us having what they referred to as a “youth bulge”. The U.N. in 2022 projected that Nigeria’s population will, by 2050, be the fourth largest in the world with 375 million people.
As at now (2026), 70% of Nigeria’s population, put at 230 million plus, is under 30 years. Gen Z and Millenials constitute 50.1% of Nigeria’s population.
Ordinarily, this state of affairs ought to have been both a “demographic dividend” and a wake up call. We ought to have harnessed and channeled the energy and creativity of this youthful population towards our development.
Alas, we have been inept and incompetent in harvesting these potentials and deploying them to productive use.
The consequence of this ineptitude is that millions of Nigeria’s youths are unemployed. A 2025 report by Plan International Nigeria and Action Aid estimated that 80 million youths were unemployed. This is not to add those who are fodder and ready recruits for insurgency and all manners criminality.
Having accepted the inevitability of tweaking the NYSC Act to reflect current realities, one is dubious as to how a civilian leadership is the panacea. True, the NYSC was conceived in 1973 under a military dispensation and today we are in a democratic one. Yet we are faced with heightened insecurity which has raged for seventeen(17) years and counting. This doubt is underscored by the fact even in the approved reforms, one of the Corps being touted, ironically, is Paramilitary and Security.
Additionally, all Director-Generals of the NYSC have been procured from the Army’s Education Corps. They are therefore scholar-soldiers and are at home with graduates of tertiary institutions.
To make these reforms verily holistic, they must begin, not at the branches and tree tops. They should begin at the roots. If we agree that part of our challenge of youth unemployment is that there is a disconnect between school curricula and realities in the field or our industries, then we must proceed, in earnest, from our Primary schools to our Secondary schools and thence to our Tertiary institutions. In other words, we should adopt a botttoms-up approach to reviewing our curricula and not its opposite.
Curricula should be suffused with subjects that confer skills sets and digital competences on scholars such that they will either be employed or self-employed upon graduation and serving in the NYSC scheme. The NYSC scheme should be a fitting cap: It should merely offer yet another opportunity for the corps member to revisit what he has learned over the years and to perfect the skills he has acquired from Primary to Tertiary school.
Our tertiary institutions should be compelled to introduce and teach courses such as entrepreneurship from the first to the final year. This should be done in the same fashion as the General Studies(G.S.) program. With the benefit of hindsight, the G.S. Courses have served us well by broadening the horizons and perspectives of scholars beyond their narrow specializations.
Beside this, our State governments and the FCT should revive and equip our Technical Colleges. If it were possible, each Senatorial District should have one.
By the same token, Skills Acquisition Centers should be set up in each of our 774 Local Government Areas to cater for those who may not have been privileged to attend our Tertiary institutions. The fact that the Dangote Refinery had to find recourse in expatriate technicians speaks clearly to how we have lost our way and how we have misplaced our priorities.
True, the NYSC Act calls for a tweaking and a revamp to address current challenges. So do the approved reforms.
