NYSC states ‘Why Corps Members Now Have to Pay N4,000 to Get Call-up Letters’

The National Youth Service Corps has defended its new policy that requires prospective corps members to pay N4,000 each before accessing their call-up letters online. According to the agency that mobilizes Nigerian graduates for their compulsory one-year service to the nation, insinuations that the new system was introduced for exploitative reasons is not true.



Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja yesterday, the agency’s Director of Press and Public Relations, Mrs Olubunmi Aderibigbe, said the new policy was in the interest of the corps members. That contrary to the false impression, the new process was aimed at improving efficiency and reducing the stress associated with the collection of call-up letters by prospective corps members. She said:

It is wrong for anyone to assert that NYSC is exploiting prospective corps members through the new computerized process. Some people seem not to know what some of prospective corps members go through before collecting their call-up letters; many of them travel several kilometres away from their homes just to get the call-ups. What we have done is in fact to reduce the cost and risks associated with the collection of the call-ups and to eliminate sharp practices associated with the old process.’’

The director of Corps Mobilisation of the scheme, Antony Ani also stated that the services which include receipt of call-up numbers through email/sms, printing or re-printing of call-up letters online in case of loss, was optional. That prospective corps members who choose to collect their call-up letters from their institutions need not pay the stipulated fee.