Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig-Gen Johnson Olawumi has explained the controversy surrounding the recent introduction of N4,000 fee for online printing of call-up letters by prospective youth corps members, noting that the innovation was in the interest of prospective corps members as it is to ensure their safety.
According to him, it would be most beneficial to foreign graduates, whom before now had to come to the NYSC headquarters in Abuja to process their call-up letters, stressing that they can now process their call-up letters online wherever they are with that option.
The DG, who was speaking in an interview in Abuja, explained that owing to digitalisation and the fact that some prospective corps members reside far away from the institutions from which they graduated, the recent innovation was to cut off the risk of them travelling to the institutions to get the call-up letters. He added that the online service was however optional and totally at the discretion of prospective corps members.
His words, “It is not true that corps members are being asked to pay to serve their country, far from it. It should be remembered that prospective corps members become the responsibility of NYSC when they show up in orientation camps, not before. So, prospective corps members (not NYSC) have always borne the costs of travelling to get their call-up letters. This has not changed and no extra burden has been imposed on our prospective corps members,”
Olawumi was emphatic that those who wish to physically pick up their call-up letters from their schools can still have that option.
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