The Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, has made a clarion call for greater support from public and private stakeholders to empower Corps Members through entrepreneurship and skills training.

Speaking at the Stakeholders’ Meeting on the NYSC Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) Programme, held at the Nigerian Army Resource Centre in Abuja, Nafiu said there was an urgent need to address the disparity between the number of Corps Members trained and those who eventually establish successful ventures.

Represented by Dr. Ahmed Wada Ikaka, Director of Planning, Research, and Statistics at the Scheme, Nafiu lamented that many aspiring entrepreneurs were hindered by lack of funding and bureaucratic bottlenecks associated with securing start-up capital.

“The wide gap between trained Corps Members and actual business owners is caused by insufficient access to start-up funds and the unfavourable conditions that come with them,” he explained.

He disclosed that since SAED’s inception in 2012, over three million Corps Members had been sensitised and trained in vocational skills, with a sizeable number having gone ahead to start small-scale enterprises and become job creators.

The DG commended organisations like the NNPCL Foundation, Activate Success, and Wema Bank for supporting Corps Members with 50% discounted business registration through the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), which has helped formalise over 30,000 businesses.

He assured stakeholders that any resources channelled through the NYSC would be transparently managed and fully accounted for.

He also revealed that NYSC had integrated the SAED programme into its digital infrastructure, allowing Corps Members to access skill acquisition and entrepreneurship support via the NYSC Integrated System (NIS).

The initiative also includes job-readiness training, CV reviews, and mock interviews under the Job Awareness Creation Programme.

The DG added that Corps Members will soon benefit from partnerships with the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, particularly through its “Three Million Technical Talent” initiative under the Office of the Vice President.

“We are also working with the Outsource to Nigeria Initiative (OTNI) to link Corps Members directly to employment opportunities both locally and globally,” he added.

Director of SAED, Mr. Kehinde Aremu-Cole, described the meeting’s theme—“Transforming Corps Members: Strengthening Partnership for Sustainable Skills Acquisition and Empowerment”—as timely and crucial to the future of the programme.