NYSC introduces self-deployment scheme, bars expectant women, nursing mothers

THE management of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has introduced a self-deployment scheme making it possible for prospective corps members to determine where they wish to serve.

Besides, pregnant women and nursing mothers have been barred from participating in the scheme, until after weaning their babies and declared fit to engage in the national service.

The decision to introduce self-deployment into the NYSC, according to the management, is expected to curb fraud, which it said was often associated with the earlier method of deployment of prospective corps members.

The development is part of resolutions after an NYSC 2015 Batch ‘B’ pre-mobilisation workshop held in Kaduna.

The Director of Corps Mobilisation, Mr. Anthony Ani, told The Guardian that the decision to introduce self-deployment and also bar pregnant women and nursing mothers from the scheme were part of the resolutions to enhance the effectiveness of NYSC activities.

Meanwhile, in a communiqué at the end of the workshop on Thursday, NYSC officials said that, “in a bid to tackle the problem of deluge of concessional requests with which the NYSC is being inundated, prospective corps members will henceforth be given the opportunity to choose states of their choice outside their socio-cultural and linguistic areas, using ICT solution.

“Given the negative implications of assigning invalid or wrong JAMB numbers to prospective corps members during the mobilisation process, corps producing institutions have been advised to always take advantage of the window of opportunity created by the JAMB and regularise the admission of their graduates and advise the affected graduates to activate such numbers before presenting them for mobilisation.

“For us to bring administration nearer to everybody, complaints and issues arising from the on-line registration from prospective corps members and corps producing institutions will henceforth be lodged with the Deployment and Relocation officers at the NYSC state secretariats for onward transmission to the ICT department for necessary action.

“It was further resolved that pregnant women and nursing mothers and students engaged in postgraduate studies should not bother to enlist for service until they are free to participate effectively.”

Participants at the workshop included directors and heads of units at the NYSC, representatives from the NBTE, JAMB, Nigerian Army, universities, polytechnics, monotechnics as well as from the colleges of education.