The NYSC Director, Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, paid a courtesy call on former Director General, Brigadier General Maharazu Ismaila Tsiga, in Kaduna, as the NYSC scheme prepares to mark its 53rd anniversary, with the retired general urging sustained commitment to national unity, integration, and corps welfare.

Tsiga, who led the scheme from 2009 to 2011, commended corps members and staff for their contributions to national development, describing the workforce as the backbone of the scheme and corps members as the spine holding the nation's unity together.

He urged the current management to prioritise corps member welfare, pointing to his administration's introduction of the War Against Poverty programme, through which corps members received 250,000 naira each to establish small scale businesses and achieve self reliance at the end of their service year.

Nafiu, who disclosed that the courtesy call was part of a broader initiative to visit all past chief executives of the scheme to draw from their experience, informed his host that NYSC was actively expanding its Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development programme to combat graduate unemployment.

"Many partners have come on board in recent times to join this crusade, thereby availing the Scheme's entrepreneurial expertise as well as financial and material aids to Corps Members," Nafiu revealed.

The current director general also disclosed that the government had increased the number of corps members to be mobilised in 2026 to 450,000, attributing the rise to the growing population of graduates produced by an increasing number of corps producing institutions across the country.

Nafiu described the surge in graduate mobilisation as one of the scheme's most pressing challenges, noting that the proliferation of degree awarding institutions had placed considerable strain on the scheme's operational capacity.

Tsiga, in his response, lauded the dedication of NYSC staff and corps members over the decades and called on the current leadership to keep the scheme firmly on course as it enters its 53rd year of operation.