By Asmau Ahmad
The Africa Union (AU) has indicated its willingness to partner the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) in skills acquisition for youths in Nigeria.
The AU Envoy in Nigeria, Dr. Tunji Asaolu, gave the indication in Abuja when he paid a courtesy visit to the Director- General of NYSC, Brigadier-General Sule Kazaure.
Dr. Asaolu noted that the NYSC was the only body that could help the Federal Government to reduce the burden of unemployment in Nigeria.
“We want to partner NYSC, using corps members to run teachers volunteer scheme and use these teachers in a survey and those who perform well will be retained. We are encouraging people to develop skills in production and agriculture; our partnership will create jobs, enrich the economy and develop the country at large.
“Some programmes that can help engage youths are Africa Youth Volunteer Corps, Pan Africa Safety Commission and so on. With the intervention programmes that we have, we will see how we can subsidise to enable us to achieve the goal,” he said.
Asaolu said that if corps members were making and using products made by NYSC, the organisation could become a big company of its own.
Responding, the NYSC DG, pledged to key into the partnership and added that a technical committee had been set up to meet with the AU.
He said NYSC was ready to partner AU to empower and improve the lives of Nigerians.
