Yakubu Gowon, the former head of state and founding father of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), has commended the managers of the scheme for sustaining the vision that informed itd establishment.
Gowon spoke when Olakunle Nafiu, the newly appointed director-general of the NYSC paid him a courtesy visit at his residence in Abuja.
The former head of state said the NYSC, which was greeted with strong opposition from Nigerian students at inception, had not only overcome the initial misgivings but had grown to become a nationally recognised and accepted tool for fostering national unity, integration, development, job creation, and youth empowerment in Nigeria.
He acknowledged the multi-dimensional contributions of corps members to national development in the over 50 years of the scheme’s existence.
He praised the deployment policy of NYSC, which exposes corps members to the various peoples and cultures of Nigeria, by posting them to states and geographical locations other than their own.
While congratulating the new NYSC DG on his appointment, Gowon urged him to build on the legacies of his predecessors by propelling the scheme o greater heights and also wished him well.
Nafiu described the initiative of establishing the NYSC in 1973 as a divine project that has been of immense blessing to the country, positively impacting generations of Nigerians.
Nafiu, who said the visit was to solicit for Gowon’s blessings, expressed appreciation for his fatherly role to the Scheme, and appealed for his continued mentorship.
The NYSC was established by the Gowon administration as part of the post-war programmes designed to reconcile, reconstruct, and rehabilitate Nigeria after a bitter 30-month long civil war that had ravaged the country.
