NYSC Ditches Khaki Uniform For Adire

After over five decades of putting on the Khaki Uniform,  National Youth Service Corps Members are now to wear Nogeria’s Adire, popular, mostly, in the South-west in place of the usual Khaki uniform.

This was the decision of the Federal Government as part of the ongoing reforms aimed at repositioning the scheme.

The Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande disclosed this on Thursday during an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief.

He said the move is intended to promote local manufacturing and ensure government spending supports the Nigerian economy.

“It’s Adire. So, Adire is being produced in Nigeria. We have them in Ogun, we have them in Kwara, we have textile industry. Let’s put our money back into the country,” he said.

Olawande also said corps members would increasingly be posted according to their fields of study under the new framework, explaining that graduates with education qualifications, for instance, would be deployed to schools rather than being posted without consideration for their professional backgrounds.

“After you are leaving the camp, you are not just posted to a school just because NYSC wants you to be in school but because of the process you followed when in camp. So, that is going to give a framework of where you are going to be posted to,” he said.

On security, the Minister said the government was considering posting prospective corps members to regions where they studied and were already familiar with the environment, particularly in areas facing security challenges.

He stated that arrangements is in top gear, as it would reduce concerns among parents and prospective corps members while making the deployment process more practical.

“If you have interest that you want to go to the North-East why not, but if you don’t have interest, instead of redeploying you, paying people for camp, doing all those funny things, we said no, let us look at it and say who are those in that area, that can reside in those geographical areas and still give us the kind of number we are looking for since we are saying NYSC should be more impactful. So, that is what we are talking about,” he said.