•Corps members
The federal government yesterday approved a comprehensive reform of the National Youth Service Corps since its establishment in 1973, replacing military leadership with a civilian Director-General.
It also restructured the one-year scheme into 11 specialised skills-based streams, redesigned the orientation camp programme and uniform, and directed the amendment of the NYSC Act to give immediate legal effect to the changes.
This followed yesterday’s Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the Council Chamber of the State House, Abuja, reports The PUNCH.
It is the first in three months since March 4, 2026, when the President swore in Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Disu.
Also yesterday, the federal government approved the establishment of a National Snakebite Research and Medical Centre in Kaltungo, Gombe State.
It also approved N128.29bn across five health and aviation projects, including the procurement of tuberculosis commodities worth N62bn, reproductive health drugs worth N25bn, 10 blood donation vans worth N6.9bn, and the construction of the Gboko airstrip in Benue State at N34.39bn.
Briefing State House correspondents after the meeting, the Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Wisdom, said the reform process for the NYSC began in 2025 when a committee was constituted to carry out a full review of the scheme, adding that the outcome represented a fundamental repositioning of the NYSC from a mobilisation exercise into a platform for skills development, job creation, productivity and national growth.
He explained, “The NYSC was created in 1973 to promote national unity after the civil war. For 53 years, it has helped bring together Nigerian graduates and strengthen national unity. But today, our needs as a country have changed, and many expect the objectives of NYSC to also change.
“Our review found a number of challenges with NYSC, outdated laws, weak links between education and jobs, and concerns about the safety and welfare of corps members, among others.”
The minister noted that the Ministries of Youth Development and Education and the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination worked together to develop the reform framework, adding that the council was invited to ratify the framework, the new organisational structure, and the directive to begin amending the NYSC Act and related regulations.
The Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination, Hadiza Bala-Usman, who has oversight of the reform implementation, described the move as the first holistic reform of the scheme in its 53-year history and linked the overhaul to the administration’s ambition of building a one-trillion-dollar economy.
She said, “One of the important things on the basis of which we decided to embark on this reform process is that there is a need for us to intervene to build the present ambition of a $1tn economy by repositioning NYSC as a civilian-led, skill-oriented, productivity-driven and youth-empowering national institution.
“Indeed, as mentioned, the NYSC has been in existence for 53 years, and this is the first time there has been a holistic reform.
“The reform areas speak to all the strategic aspects of NYSC, starting from the area of the main area of deployment, how you are registering, what modality is being used to post you to several states, how we are recognising the areas where we have security challenges.”
She said the reform now segments the NYSC into 11 distinct core streams, which every corps member will be required to select upon registration based on academic background and personal skills profile.
The streams are the Agriculture Core, the Medical Core, the Education Core, the Technology and Digital Core, the Legal Core, the Public Service Core, the Infrastructure Core, the Green Core, the Enterprise Core, the Creative Economy Core, and the Paramilitary and Security Core.
“When you come in as a youth corps member, you will now pick which stream you want to participate in. Once you have uploaded and been recognised and accepted as a corps member, you are required to pick one of those cores, and once you register in that, certain trainings will be given for each of those cores within the two weeks,” Usman explained.
The orientation camp programme, she revealed further, will be redesigned from its current format into a structured six-week curriculum divided into three distinct two-week phases.
“The first two weeks speak to laying a foundation on civic responsibility, you will be made aware of what civic duties mean, our national values and leadership development,
“The next two weeks will look at career mapping, basic accounting literacy skills, business planning and access to finance, how do we access finance and then we intend to introduce a structured career day programme to enable corps members to engage directly with the public.
“The final two weeks, we intend to have focused corps-stream-specific training aligned with the corps member’s designated stream based on his choice, his academic background and skills profile,” Usman said.
She noted that for streams requiring longer certification periods, such as the Digital Core, where relevant certifications may span three to six months, corps members would remain in structured training rather than being posted to primary assignment locations.
“We want them to have skills that will enable them to be self-employed,” she said.
The new management structure will be headed by a civilian Director-General, supported by three Executive Directors and a security directorate to be led by a military or paramilitary officer, she revealed.
Responding to questions on the security implications of removing military operational leadership, Usman argued that the arrangement will preserve the military’s core protective function while transferring administrative authority to civilian professionals.
She noted, “We recognise that NYSC is spread across the whole country, and security is a core aspect of ensuring the safety of our corps members.
“The safety aspect still remains with the military, but the operational leadership of NYSC will be civilian-led, while security will continue to be anchored and implemented by the Nigerian military.”
She also noted that the Passing-Out Parade will be redesigned and renamed as a graduation ceremony.
The NYSC uniform, she added, would also be overhauled to reflect a more professional identity while preserving its distinctive character.
Usman confirmed that the Attorney-General of the Federation, working with the Ministry of Youth Development, has been directed to amend the NYSC Act and related regulations to give immediate legal backing to the approved changes.
On brain drain, the Japa wave driving thousands of NYSC-age graduates abroad each year, she said the reform was designed to turn the challenge into an asset rather than simply try to stem the outflow.
According to her, “Brain drain is something that we cannot stop as a country. We’re looking to see how we can produce more graduates that will enable us to have more, and actually export and earn foreign exchange from the brain drain.
“What happened in India: they left, and now they are back to promote and support various areas within the tech industry; this is the model. The more we produce, the more we are able to retain and channel brain drain back into Nigeria’s development.”
Also briefing State House correspondents after the meeting, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Ali Pate, said the council considered four critical health items, beginning with the upgrade of the existing snakebite treatment facility in Kaltungo into a comprehensive research and medical institution with an expanded mandate for clinical services, research and training.
Pate explained, “The Federal Executive Council today considered four important items related to the health of Nigerian people.
“First was the upgrade of the snake bite treatment centre in Kaltungo, Gombe State, into the National Snake Bite Research and Medical Centre in Kaltungo, Gombe State, with an expanded mandate for clinical services, research, and training to respond to the need that exists in our country for adequate attention to snake bites and snake envenomation.
“Snakebite remains a significant yet neglected public health challenge, particularly in our rural communities here in Nigeria, in the savannah regions, but also across the sub-region, and is especially hard on vulnerable populations, farmers, herders, hunters, women and children, whose livelihoods and daily activities expose them to encounters with snakes.
“We do have a large burden. Over 43,000 snakebites annually occur, many of which result in death, disfigurement, disability and psychological trauma with severe socioeconomic impact.
“This new centre will be an important new institution that will address the challenge, particularly in the Northeast, the Northwest and the North Central geopolitical zones of Nigeria, where the issue is most dire.”
He said the new centre would provide comprehensive, specialised care for snakebite and related envenomations, undertake research on snakebite epidemiology, prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and ensure sustainable access and supply of quality anti-snake venom through a full clinical and medical department.
“It will also partner with international institutions. This is a major step that brings an institution that will be the first of its kind in this country, but also in our sub-region,” Pate added.
On the second approval, Pate said the council approved the procurement of 10 units of compressed natural gas-powered blood donation medical clinic vans for the National Blood Service Agency’s zonal activities, at a cost of N6.9bn.
“Approximately, we require 1.8 million units of blood donations annually. At the current rate, we only get about 25 to 30 per cent.
“These blood donation vehicles can be deployed to mobilise donors so that we enhance the collection of blood that is critical for pregnant women who may require caesarean sections, for trauma victims, for patients undergoing surgery, but also for those being treated for cancers who require repeated transfusions.
“It is part of the effort to build infrastructure comprehensively for emergency medical services dealing with maternal health,” the minister explained.
The third approval, Pate revealed, was for the procurement of tuberculosis commodities.
He argued that the item reflected a deliberate pivot away from decades of dependence on external actors for the country’s TB treatment supply chain.
He said, “Nigeria is among the countries that have the highest burden of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a socially determined disease, a disease of those who are poor, vulnerable, a disease of poverty, malnutrition, comorbidities and poor housing.
“Until now, most of the treatment for tuberculosis depended on external actors. Now the Nigerian government is stepping in to procure those commodities and put us on a path to manufacture them locally.
“We don’t manufacture those at the moment, so the effort to procure by the Federal Government will ultimately lead to the manufacturing of anti-tuberculosis drugs, both the first line and the second line.”
The health minister said the fourth approval, worth N25bn, covered reproductive health drugs and commodities to be procured through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency and distributed through primary health care centres nationwide.
According to him, “The procurement is to provide family planning commodities and maternal health commodities for those who choose to use them for birth spacing, essentially allowing women to exercise their wish, if they so wish, to use family planning.
“This is also with a view to getting us on a path to manufacturing those commodities in Nigeria.”
For his part, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo (SAN), said the council also approved the construction and development of the Gboko airstrip in Benue State, awarded to MESSRS CCECC Nigeria Limited at a contract sum of N34.39bn.
“The Gboko area, in particular, serves as an important hub for agricultural activities around the Middle Belt, and also, in particular, for security agencies who have had to look for airstrips and bases to confront the challenges we are facing around that axis,” Keyamo said.
He added, “It will also be a base for humanitarian activities and services and emergency medical services. That is how important that area is, and we thought it was important to put an airstrip there to confront and address these challenges of government.”
