The National Youth Service Corps has warned Prospective Corps Members with fake credentials to stay off its Orientation Camps across the country as the Scheme gets set for the 2020 Batch ‘A’ Orientation Course.

It added that anyone caught, especially graduates from the universities in West African sub-region with the intent to undermine the integrity of its mobilisation process with fake certificates would be arrested and prosecuted.

The Director-General, Brigadier General Shuaibu Ibrahim, according to press release signed by Adenike Adeyemi,  Director, Press and Public Relations,   gave this warning in his office in Abuja.

He said that the NYSC Scheme had put necessary mechanism in place to curb the enrolment of fake graduates for the Orientation course, and would continue working diligently in that direction.

The DG noted that the Scheme had made tremendous achievements in the fight against unqualified graduates who try to infiltrate the Scheme.

Ibrahim added that during the 2019 Batch ‘C’ online registration, over twenty thousand foreign – trained Nigerians uploaded their results online, however, during the physical verification exercise, just 3,420 showed up, having been forewarned that anyone caught with fake certificate would be prosecuted..

He added that the Scheme recently had a meeting with the Registrars and Student Affairs Officers of some African Universities and read the riot act to them, including the Vice-Chancellors, Rectors and Provosts of Corps Producing Institutions in the country on the need to sanitise the mobilisation process.

“The NYSC alone cannot do it, we need other stakeholders to assist us and we have started the process and l am sure things are getting better”.

“I want to appeal to our youths to do the right thing and not to cut corners in whatever they do in life, because there is always reward for hard work”, he added.

The NYSC boss appealed to members of the public not to fall prey to the antics of online scammers that promise preferential deployment, internal posting, relocation and other services for a fee.

He urged them to always visit the Scheme’s website and NYSC State Secretariats nationwide to make enquires on issues concerning the Scheme instead of falling victim to the fraudsters.

Speaking further, the DG added that no Corps Member would be deployed to any State where there is security breach, while equally advising Corps Members not to endanger themselves through risky adventures and unauthorised journeys. He charged them to be security conscious at all times. He also admonished them to board vehicles from only authorised motor parks and not by the roadside. He counselled that they should resist the temptation of free rides, especially from strangers.

General Ibrahim hinted that plans were underway to turn the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) centre in Gombe into a training institute where youths in the North-Eastern part of the country would be trained on skill acquisition which would inturn reduce the level of unemployment among the youths in the country.

The Director-General appealed to Corps Members to avoid the wrong use of the Social Media and any action that may haunt them in future, but embrace the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development programme of the Scheme which has been designed to empower them.

The DG commended the Federal Government on the recent increase of Corps Members’ allowance which was captured in the 2020 budget of the Scheme, payable with effect from January this year, which therefore precludes the payment of arrears.

“Corps Members are not Civil Servants, they are on national service and the commencement date for the payment of the increment of their allowance is January 2020 which the Federal Government has started”, he concluded.