Thousands of fresh Higher National Diploma (HND) graduates in Nigeria have been thrown into confusion over the federal government’s decision to exclude them from participating in the mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.

The affected graduates lamented that they were denied registration, because their Ordinary National Diploma (OND) programme was done as a part–time programme.
They described the development as not only strange, but alien to the NYSC scheme since its inception 53 years ago.

Subsequently, they went on a peaceful protest in Lagos, when they discovered that their colleagues, who had both their ND and HND programmes on full-time, have been mobilised for the scheme.

While marching to the NYSC Surulere office, the aggrieved graduates appealed to the organisation and President Bola Tinubu to look into the matter and mobilise them for service without delay.

They wondered why the agency would reject them when they had regularised their admission with the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), which issued them admission letters as direct entry students for their HND programmes.

They described the policy as discriminatory, emphasising that many of them had worked hard to transition from part-time national diploma programmes to full time HND programmes.

“Many of us did ND part-time and later switched to full-time HND. We were not told there is a policy that will deny us the opportunity to serve, despite the struggles we faced during our ND years.”