Brigadier General Shuaibu Ibrahim, Director-General National Youth Service Corps (DG-NYSC) is a highly innovative person. His being the DG-NYSC, has changed the fortunes of the NYSC, giving it more heft through dexterous management. A remarkable scholar, administrator, and innovator combined, no wonder Gen Ibrahim ably fits to lead such an institution where the rough edges of youthful exuberance are chiseled by the moderations of leadership training, national orientation and cultural scholarship. Excitingly, his activities are putting corps members on an insecure footing in the race for self-actualization, coming out with a lot of innovations to further strengthen NYSC National enterprise.
As a result of these, Gen Ibrahim was on Saturday the 16th day of October conferred with 2020 the Sun Award of Excellence in Public Service, by the Sun Newspaper.
“Sir, this award didn’t come to us as a surprise, given your unprecedented achievements and rare innovations introduced in the NYSC scheme.” Wrote Chief Chukwuemeka Ositadinmna Oruche, MD/CEO, Osita Merchandise Works Ltd in a congratulatory message to the DG on the day of the conferment.
General Ibrahim is one of the nicest military officers who any person would wish to meet. He is a man of free spirits and ebullient social graces. This explains why he is such a great administrator and team player.
At the NYSC, he is committed to building capabilities for Nigerian youth transforming them from just representatives of their state or geo-political zones to strategic team players in the national enterprise, with roots in collaboration. He ensures they are immersed in leadership training and orientation that gives them a patriotic mindset and strengthens their global outlook. This is to provide them with a deeper foundation of leadership knowledge and self-awareness in approaching the future. They also have a new mindset away from the “ordinary” view of the future—the business-as-usual outlook—which reflects an optimism bias and is based on the human tendency to see familiar patterns and be blind to the unexpected.
Everywhere Gen Ibrahim etches impactful imprints. Before being appointe3d to head the NYSC, he was at the Nigerian Army University (NAU ) Biu, Borno state, as pioneer registrar and he made a great impact there. Gen. Ibrahim’s two years’ stint as the DG-NYSC has ingrained innovation that is his mark of excellence as a scholar, an astute administrator, innovator, reformer, team player and goal-getter in administering the scheme.
NYSC is now amply meeting its core mandate of bridging the gulf between the years of academic work and the first practical experiences of young Nigerian graduates towards the ideals of ethnic inculturation, repulsion to religious prejudices’, self-reliance and personal development and national productivity.
Gen Ibrahim enhanced and breathed life into the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development programme of the scheme, which was almost dormant before his appointment. As a result of his innovations, the one month’s practical skills training in the orientation course content for corps members during camps now incorporate something of great value to the youth. It has led to the expansion of personal knowledge in various trades; for self-reliance and development.
Sometimes ago, Gen. Shuaib raised the idea of The NYSC Trust Fund. This envisages to source funding from a certain percentage of profits made by corporate bodies operating in the country; which in addition to the financial empowerment of passing out corps members, would confer financial independence in funding NYSC projects such as the expansion of orientation camps and renovation of dilapidating camp facilities.
Over this NYSC Trust Fund, Gen Ibrahim is already in dialogue with the FGN and other relevant stakeholders to formally establish a legislation-backed NYSC Trust Fund. In furtherance of this, the NYSC DG spoke at a symposium on the imperative of the proposed NYSCTF held in Abuja last October.
He said the proposed NYSC Trust Fund was something that would strengthen the operations of the Scheme in the same manner like other Trust Funds. He described it as a reliable and sustainable source of business financing for Corps entrepreneurs, assuring that the bill is currently undergoing some finishing touches and will soon be presented to the National Assembly.
He further argued that the fund will surely help to stimulate and accelerate the nation’s economy growth, adding that it will equally drastically reduce restiveness, violence and criminal tendencies amongst the youths.
“Part of the resolutions of the 2021 meeting is the proposal for the establishment of a dedicated fund that will be backed by law to complement resource allocation from the three tiers of government. The fund, which will be called the NYSCTF is expected to strengthen the operations of the Scheme in the same manner the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, the Police Equipment Trust Fund and the Petroleum Technology Development Fund aid the operations of tertiary educational institutions, the Nigeria Police as well as the oil and gas industry respectively.
“When operational, the NYSCTF will help address infrastructural and other logistic needs for the smooth conduct of Orientation Courses, provision Corps Lodges, Corps Transit Camps and other essential facilities for the welfare of Corps members.
“In addition, resources from the fund will support Staff training for higher productivity as well as logistic requirements for special aspects of our Community Development Service such as the medical outreaches conducted under the NYSC Health Initiative for Rural Dwellers,” he highlighted.
While enumerating other importance of the fund in tackling the challenges of the Scheme, he said: “In a very significant way, the Fund will also focus on making the SAED programme of the Scheme more functional through adequate provision of training facilities. It will further serve as a reliable and sustainable source of business financing for Corps entrepreneurs that would emerge from the programme.
In his goodwill message, Chairman House Committee on Youth and Sports, Yemi Adaramodu, assured that the National Assembly will provide the legislative framework to facilitate the passage of the proposed Bill.
Other Stakeholders that promised to actualize the passage of the Bill included Ministers of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mohammed Bello and his Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, Chairman, NYSC National Governing Board, Ambassador Fatima Balla Abubakar, among others.
Gen. Ibrahim has purged the scheme of the menace of corruption in NYSC, evident in the admittance of prospective corps members with fake results. NYSC is no longer a place where jobless Nigerians or roadside artisans, who never went to school, but dubiously sneaked into the scheme and became perpetual corps members, through his stern physical verification. He personally does this, even working up to the middle of the night.
Equally, he prioritizes the welfare of corps members. Under his leadership, the Presidency approved an increment in the monthly allowance of corps members to N33,000, above the prescribed New National Minimum wage. It is intended to create a window for prudent NYSC members to save part of the stipends to invest into employable initiatives after service. And when the NYSC Trust Fund finally takes off, employment would have been dealt a devastating punch in the country.
The NYSC leadership is restless and relentless to gain its financial independence, by harnessing initiatives designed to increase revenue flow into the agency. Therefore, the scheme is aggressively pursuing its investments initiatives to boost its income generation, rather than depend on the mono-source of revenue which at the moment majorly falls on the FGN and intensifies its financial stress.
Consequently, the abandoned NYSC water and bakery factories at NYSC orientation camp Kubwa have been revived and functioning maximally. The NYSC now uses its own water at orientation camps in many parts of the country and the products from these investments are competitively visible in the markets of neighboring states such as Abuja, Kogi, Nasarawa, Kaduna and, Niger among others.
Under his leadership, the NYSC has constructed a two thousand bird capacity poultry farm at Kwali, FCT. And it has almost completed the resuscitation of the NYSC Poultry Farm, Ita Ogbolu, Ondo state. He is injecting life into moribund NYSC ventures, as the NYSC Rice Mill Ezillo in Ebonyi is nearing completion for full operations; likewise, the NYSC Feed Mill in Lagos state, which is primed and technologized for the production of animal feeds.
The DG-NYSC, in alliance with stakeholders, have dialogued and obtained the consent of the State Governors of Edo, Ekiti, and Nasarawa states on support for the scheme’s investment drives. These State Governments have graciously donated land for the establishment of NYSC Garment Factories for South-South, Southwest as well as a whopping 16 hectares of land for crops production for revenue generation and platforms of training of more corps members in industrial and agricultural capacities.
And through the direction of the NYSC boss, the first time ever, NYSC Wood (Film Company) and NYSC National Cultural Troupe have been established. And he has secured their thriving and sustenance by striking a smooth relationship with the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) for the proper indoctrination, training of corps members and technical supports.
Gen. Ibrahim has repositioned the NYSC to begin to disseminate and articulate its activities to the public. He has therefore secured an operational license for the scheme’s proposed radio station, where corps members will directly be empowered to speak to Nigerians wherever they are domiciled for the primary assignment.
Partnership with relevant agencies, bodies, and corporate organizations for the benefits of serving corps members is a focal policy of his leadership so far. No wonder, the NYSC under his leadership has partnered with a dozen of such organizations for the personal development of corps members and national productivity.
Gen. Ibrahim is also working to ensure that the NYSC participates in the diversification of the economy through agriculture. He knows that economic diversification is of essence to the government of President Muhammadu Buhari. In this regard, he has done a lot to ensure corps members are trained on the latest farming techniques and encouraged to embrace agriculture as their contribution to national food security.
In the pursuit of this laudable vision, as soon as Gen. Ibrahim assumed duties at NYSC, he revamped the scheme’s four farm settlements across the country as part of efforts to key into the FGN’s agriculture diversification initiative. NYSC mega-farms in Abuja, Bauchi, Kebbi, and Oyo states have been activated.
Corps members have also been compelled to embrace the FGN’s rice policy programs and excitingly, the scheme massively cultivated rice in its Abuja and Kebbi farms in the 2020 cropping season; as in the 2021 farming season, its rice farm at Ezillo, Ebonyi state, would join the fray of robust NYSC rice fields. And the hectarage of its farmland rose astronomically from 60 hectares to 160 hectares in the 2020 farming season.
To this end, the NYSC also partnered for the training of 68 corps members among the 269 pioneer graduates, trained as soil doctors and extension services workers, by the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) in collaboration with the Government of Borno state. It is a major step towards the rejuvenation of agricultural engagements in the country.
Additionally, the NYSC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Leventis Foundation Nigeria on the training of corps members in agricultural best practices. The initiative is also to fully empower corps members with the relevant skills, bolster self-reliance and avail them incentives that would encourage the pursuit of food sufficiency in the country.
Similarly, the modalities’ have been worked out between the NYSC and the British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation for the training for corps members on agro-allied related ventures. And Gen. Ibrahim also induced corps members to enlist in the national battle against the raging Covid-19 pandemic, in which they participated excellently.