Fostering national unity between the various components that make up the country can be achieved through inter-tribal marriages among corps members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC.
The Director, Corps Welfare and Health Services of the NYSC, Benjamin Ayo-Omotade, made the assertion on Saturday during his address to the 2021 Batch ‘C’ (Stream 1) corps members deployed to Ondo State.
Speaking at the NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp in Ikare-Akoko, Ayo-Omotade said that it was only people with sinister motives that would not appreciate what the scheme was doing in that regard.
“Through the instrument of this laudable programme, patriotic and focused Nigerians from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds are promoting one of the core objectives of the NYSC which is to develop common ties among the Nigerian youths and promote national unity and integration.
“Before the advent of NYSC in the country, it was rare and a bit difficult to see or witness inter-tribal marriages across the divides, but with the establishment in 1973, the scheme has remained the only pathfinder that is making someone from the core North to get married to Southerners and vice versa through the relationships developed from the orientation camp,” Ayo-Omotade said.
He said that the orientation camp was a beautiful place to be because of the events and activities that had been specially designed to achieve a particular purpose in the lives of corps members.
“Very intelligent and amiable youths of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I want to let you know that orientation camp is fundamentally designed to instill in you virtues of industry and discipline for the task of nation-building and I want to admonish you to participate fully and actively too in all the orientation course contents,” he said.
He charged corps members to apply themselves to the critical lessons of the orientation course as every component was designed to achieve set objectives.
Ayo-Omotade announced that the NYSC had concluded plans with the management of National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS, to integrate corps members into the healthcare system.
He added that the members of the service corps were not mobilised and deployed based on ethnic, religious considerations or the people they knew but that their deployment was based purely on constitutional rights which conferred the privilege on NYSC to mobilise qualified Nigerian graduates who were 30 years and below.
He commended the Ondo State Coordinator, Mrs. Victoria Nnenna Ani, for the exceptional neatness of the camp and the high level of discipline and comportment exhibited by the corps members.
The elated Ani, who described the Director as one of the finest administrator of the scheme disclosed that 1478 corps members registered and 250 camp officials had undergone COVID 19 test before admittance into the camp.
She thanked the Ayo-Omotade for the efforts to attract support for the scheme and the corps participants.
“The Gentle Dove’ as Ayo-Omotade is known and called in the NYSC circle extended his generosity to the corps members and camp officials, the move was seen as unprecedented in the annals of the NYSC, Ondo State,” Ani said.
