There is apprehension and disillusionment at the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) over the withholding of the results of the promotion examination conducted for the senior staff of the agency between May 26 and June 1, 2025.

It was discovered that the indecision of Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, has refused to grant approval to the report submitted to him nearly two months ago, and this is largely responsible for the growing low staff morale at the agency.

The Minister, charged with driving youth-focused initiatives and policies in government, and whose ministry supervises NYSC, was appointed by President Bola Tinubu and assumed office in 2023.

But, ill-advised by some entrenched interests, the non-approval of the promotion results is negatively impacting over 100 million Nigerian youths who, upon graduating from higher institutions, are nurtured and remoulded to mature patriotic Nigerian citizens by the NYSC.

However, this establishment is being plagued by acute and excruciating bureaucratic red tape resulting in the none-release of the results of the staff promotion examination, concluded nearly two months ago.

The promotion examination affected all cadres of qualified officers on Grade Levels 07 to 16, and should have been released not later than two weeks after the results were submitted to the Minister, but is yet to be made public.

It was gathered from informed sources at the Ministry that, “in the absence of a Governing Board, as is the case at the moment, the results of the promotion examination conducted by the Senior Staff Committee is yet to be ratified by the supervising Minister, Mr. Olewande”.

The sources further disclosed that “the Senior Staff Committee of the NYSC, made up of the serving Director-General of the NYSC, all the Directors at NYSC, the Director, Human Resources Management, of the Ministry of Youth Development and a Representative of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, have since completed their duty and submitted its report.

“After the examination and the selection of staff who passed the examination on merit, it should normally not take more than two weeks for the Minister to ratify the report and return to the Director-General NYSC, who will order the release of the promotion letters to promoted officers.

“The current delay, resulting from indecision of the Minister, is curious and requires urgent intervention before stories begin to fly out on the promotion results outcomes,” the concerned staff member of the Ministry stated.

Further investigation by this newspaper revealed the negative impact of entrenched interests, whose preferred candidates had failed to hit the pass mark set by the Committee, and have, therefore, sworn to frustrate and set aside the entire process.

Efforts to speak with the Minister when our reporters visited the ministry were firmly frustrated by his staff, who refused access to our reporters in spite of clearly explaining the reasons for the visit.

At the NYSC Directorate headquarters in Maitama, Abuja, they also refused to speak to our reporters, fearing victimisation.

However, informed sources confirmed that the delay is negatively affecting work output and dampening the morale of staff of the NYSC.