The National Youth Service Corps has urged banks and other corporate entities and individuals to emulate the Bank of Industry which provided N2bn loan to finance corps members with good business ideas.
The Osun State Coordinator of the NYSC, Mrs. Regina Iluebbey, said this in an interview with journalists on Friday on the sidelines of the swearing-in ceremony of 2015 Batch B stream II at the NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp in Ede, Osun State.
The NYSC boss said providing soft loans for corps members with business ideas would assist in making them job creators and would help in solving the problem of unemployment confronting the nation.
She said, ” The Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund of the BoI with the NYSC is a laudable idea. We in the NYSC wish the scheme could be bigger than what it is now. Making it bigger will accommodate more corps members who have good ideas.
“We want other corporate bodies, banks and even wealthy individuals to emulate the Bank of Industry in this area. Many of these corps members you see have wonderful business ideas and this type of soft loans will help them to transform their ideas into thriving business enterprises.”
Also, Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, also said in his speech that the nation must put in place various programmes which would assist the nation’s youths to be job captors rather than becoming job seekers.
The governor stated that the NYSC had been performing the functions its founding fathers had in mind, saying the call for the scrapping of the scheme was wrong.
Aregbesola said, ” Nigeria is at present faced with economic challenges because of the dwindling oil revenue. Our over dependence on oil as a source of revenue has made us neglect other sectors of the economy. This period of economic recession in which we found ourselves has compelled us to realise the need for the development of other sectors of the economy.
“It is therefore important that Nigeria must strive to become a nation of producer rather than a nation of consumers of foreign goods. We must evolve our own industrial and agricultural technologies. Adequate programmes must be put in place to assist our youths to be job creators rather than job seekers.”
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