NYSC Boss: 'We Have Started Training Corps Members in Self-Defense

Are you aware that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is presently perfecting arrangements to ensure that corps members get self-defense training as they embark on the mandatory one-year scheme?

Well, now you are and this was confirmed by the Director General of the NYSC, Okorie Affia who recently revealed this as one of the strategies to ensure that corps members remain safe; especially those posted to the North.

Here's what he said when asked what the NYSC was doing to ensure the safety of corps members in Nigeria:

"we believe corps members can only serve their country when they are alive and safe. We are doing a lot to ensure that corps members are safe and that they feel safe from the camps, through their primary assignment to their passing out, and not just in those volatile states but all over the country. We have doubled security personnel at the orientation camps. We have increased number of armed soldiers, mobile policemen, SSS operatives and members of the Civil Defense Corps in the orientation camps across the country.

After orientation, we give the location of the lodges of corps members to the State Police Command, the State Security Service and the civil defense corps so that they would easily know where to go to in case of emergency involving corps members. We are also partnering more intensely with the state governments and they have been very responsive.


We have also set up a distress call centre where corps members in distress can call in to receive help on time. We have started training corps members in self-defense and we also issue security tips to them for them to understand their environment, where not to go, and how to conduct themselves in a security-conscious way."

Well, those were the precise words of the NYSC boss. Kindly drop a comment and tell us what you think about this.

By Samod Biobaku
simplysamad@yahoo.com

@simplysamad