The Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, has said disclosed plan to change the uniform of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members from the traditional khaki to Adire.

Mr Olawande disclosed this during an interview on Channels TV on Thursday after the Federal Executive Council (FEC), on Monday, sanctioned reform of the NYSC for the first time since the scheme was established 53 years ago. 

The minister did not specify the timeline for the implementation of the uniform change but noted that the decision was aimed at encouraging local manufacturing and improvement of Nigeria’s economy. 

“It’s Adire. So, Adire is being produced in Nigeria. We have them in Ogun State, we have them in Kwara State, we have textile industry. Let’s put our money back into the country,” Mr Olawande said. 

Speaking further, Mr Olawande stated that part of the overhaul includes specific-based postings whereby corps members would be posted to the place of primary assignment that aligns with their academic qualifications.

“That after you are leaving the camp, you are not just posted to a school just because NYSC wants you to be in school but because of the process you followed when in camp. So, that is going to give a framework of where you are going to be posted to,” the minister stated. 

Additionally, Mr Olawande also noted that the method of posting corps members would change to address insecurity situations. Rather than randomly assigning members to states with fragile security, the scheme would focus on individuals that have lived in certain areas and familiar with the conditions there. 

“If we have a particular area that is having insecurity, instead of probably forcing people or parents to start talking, we must also give them an opportunity that ‘okay, who are those in that area, that schooled in that area, that know much about that area?’ Not just somebody, for example, let me say from South-West to North-East.

“If you have interest that you want to go to the North-East why not, but if you don’t have interest, instead of redeploying you, paying people for camp, doing all those funny things, we said no, let us look at it and say who are those in that area, that can reside in those geographical areas and still give us the kind of number we are looking for since we are saying NYSC should be more impactful. So, that is what we are talking about,” he said.

Mr Olawande also denied reports suggesting that the military would be excluded from the NYSC, stating” Military is not taken away, there is no how you can take the military away. It is just saying that we are moving away from military mobilisation to civilian mobilisation,” while the operational leadership of the scheme would be headed by a civilian.