Under Brigadier General Olakunle Oluseye Nafiu, the federal government implemented a new monthly allowance of N77,000 for corps members. It became effective in March 2025 ending months of speculation and dragging.

In leadership, there are those who come prepared. There are those who learn on the job. As the Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Brigadier General Olakunle Oluseye Nafiu came prepared.

Since March, 2025 when he was appointed to lead Nigeria’s biggest assemblage of youths deployed for national service, General Nafiu has demonstrated that “innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower”, apologies to maverick techpreneur and innovator-in-chief, Steve Jobs.

In barely one year, Nafiu as the 23^rd DG of NYSC, has racked up a raft of accomplishments to his quiver.  This is no brainer. His pedigree both in scholarship and service makes success an assured inevitability for a man of spartan military discipline. An alumnus of the prestigious U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania (Class of 2022 Resident Course) from where he bagged a Master of Strategic Studies; he also holds a Master of International Affairs and Diplomacy from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, after bagging a Bachelor of Science in Geography from the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna.

As a geographer and expert in strategy, he has mapped out the coordinates of high points and low points in the NYSC administration which ultimately has helped him to imprint his military-honed administrative traits of discipline, integrity and foresight in just 10 months.

Already, he has proved a worthy Ambassador of his alma mater and the military. Purpose-driven with a clear vision of what he desired to see in the NYSC, both in work ethics, structural reforms and human capital orientation, he has moved swiftly and quietly to institute a bouquet of reforms that are fast yielding results in the Corps. Not a few colleagues have described him as one of the best appointments by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, himself a good head-hunter.

Let’s not forget the essence of the service scheme. The NYSC was established in 1973 “for proper encouragement and development of common ties among the youths of Nigeria and the promotion of national unity”. This is the core of the mandate of the service scheme. And in over 52 years of existence, it has deployed millions of young Nigerian graduates across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

The NYSC was not only to help provide manpower but also to help knit a united Nigeria where persons of diverse tribes and tongues may learn the rudiments of co-existence and tolerance. And it has done very well in this regard.

I say so because I lived it. I served in present day Bayelsa State. I was a science teacher at Mater Dei High School, Imiringi, a few hundred metres away from Yenagoa, the state capital. By the way, Mater Dei High School was President Goodluck Jonathan’s alma mater. It used to be a model science college well equipped by Shell. It was there I found, to my shock, autoclave machines, sophisticated microscopes all donated by Shell.  Our pay was poor but our joy was rich. We were happy to serve, happy to make impact in a community. We were four hungry and highly ambitious lads, full of the strength of youth, powered by uncommon zeal and driven by genuine passion to share knowledge with the natives. One of us was a medical doctor attached to the community clinic.

Imiringi became our home. The people became our people. Imiringi offered us the fitting flip side to city life. And we enjoyed ourselves; savoured the ambience, satiated our culinary promptings with fresh fish stew and pepper soup. Imiringi has a lot of cat fish; big, medium and small. But the locals told us that harvest was ebbing; that Shell and other oil majors have despoiled their waters with oil spills and noxious hydrocarbon. There was ample reason to believe their story. We had pipe borne water in rural Imiringi provided by Shell but alas, the water was brownish with heavy deposits of iron. We had electricity powered from gas turbine, and we never paid electricity bill because Shell graciously turned some portion of flared gas into electricity. Imiringi was rural but it was also urban. The people were friendly and we integrated. Such was, and still is, the essence of the scheme: to introduce Nigeria to Nigerians.

These days of high unemployment, the NYSC has become a handy hedge against job drought. Its relevance has shifted from national integration to temporary employment. But there are these days more reasons to serve. Nafiu has sustained the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) programme, turning the service into a finishing school where participants are skilled up, not just walking out with discharge certificates. SAED prepares the youths for entrepreneurship, beyond job hunts. Under Nafiu, the federal government implemented a new monthly allowance of N77,000 for corps members. It became effective in March 2025 ending months of speculation and dragging.

Nafiu has proved that good leadership listens. This year, he announced a bold move in inclusivity, an empathetic step to integrate corps members with disabilities into the scheme’s programs.

His continuous waves of reforms from 2025 has brought order and integrity in the mobilization process, putting a safety valve against fraudulent graduate mobilization prevalent in some schools.

He has rallied the Corps to improve the ergonomics and living conditions in orientation camps across the country. Nafiu has deployed emotional intelligence that seeks to quench the anxiety of corps members through the job-matching liaison with the private sector by ensuring that corps members with requisite training and background are posted to workplaces where they are most suited and more likely to be engaged after the service. Putting round pegs in round holes.

These days unlike in those days, NYSC has sustained strategic partnerships with the private sector and government agencies to provide corps members with business grants, loans, and free start-up capital. Some banks have latched on to this to offer startup grants to corps members.

Just one more thing. In those days far gone, there was no insecurity challenge in Nigeria. Corps members were posted from extreme south to extreme north and vice versa. These days of scary insecurity, the NYSC should consider posting corps members to states contiguous to their places of abode to avoid exposing them to uncertainties on the highways. Is it not possible to ask participants to list their preferred states of service, outside Lagos and Abuja? Insecurity in Nigeria is a modern-day challenge. We do not need book rules to avoid its fatal pitfalls, we need common sense and empathy. General Nafiu may need to consider this as he continues to ramp up his reforms. He really has done great things in just 10 months. Sometimes, the voice of leadership is silent, but its impact is profound. It’s called quiet efficiency. General Nafiu is a leader endowed with quiet efficiency.

Ken Ugbechie, fnge

Publisher, Political Economist NG

Author: Nigeria Heroes and Sheroes

Newspaper Columnist

0803 436 4524; kenchioma@yahoo.com