The Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig. Gen. Yushau Ahmed, has urged employers to always ensure adequate security and welfare of corps members posted to their establishments.

Ahmed said this during the 2023 corps employers’ workshop held on Tuesday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

He said that the workshop was aimed at discussing issues germane to corps members’ welfare, security, and the general operations of the scheme for optimal productivity.

The director-general said that the workshop’s theme: “Optimising the productivity of corps members through enhanced welfare and security during the service year”, was carefully selected.

Represented by the NYSC South-West Coordinator, Mr Julius Amusan, Ahmed said that this was in realisation of the challenges confronting corps members in their places of primary assignment.

“I will charge this forum to come up with enduring solutions to constant threats to corps members’ security, rapid decline in welfare of corps members, and poor working environment, among others.

“The 2023 edition of the Corps Employers’ Workshop should, therefore, be another viable platform to collectively rekindle and reinvigorate this duty,” he said.

In his remarks, the NYSC Coordinator in Oyo State, Mr Abel Odoba, noted that the scheme was being confronted with new emerging challenges as it kept expanding.

Odoba outlined major challenges facing the scheme, including corps rejection, under-utilisation of corps members, and inadequate welfare provision, such as accommodation and transport allowance.

According to him, field inspectors have been put on their toes, as they are made to pay regular inspection visits to corps locations while ensuring that absentee corps members are duly sanctioned.