A civil society group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), says that about 200 groups comprising organized body of credible civil society platforms have endorsed the move by the federal government to set up the NYSC youths Trust Fund.

HURIWA stated that the coalition affirmed that the coming on board of the endowment fund also known as NYSC Youth Trust Fund for aggressive acquisitions of technology-driven skills would keep hundreds of thousands of youths busy and away from being used in the 2023 general election as political thugs.

HURIWA blames political thuggery in the past for the expansions of the frontiers of terrorism, banditry and sophisticated youths-led crimes and criminality which the group says would abate if the NYSC’S Youth Trust Fund was passed into law and signed as soon as possible.

In a statement issued at the end of the brainstorming session in Owerri, Imo State, attended by leaders of credible civil rights organization drawn from the six geopolitical zones, the convener and head of the HURIWA has tasked both the National Assembly and President Muhammadu Buhari to expedite action on the passage and signing into law of the bill to enable the NYSC management to set the ball rolling and to take young graduates in their hundreds of thousands out of the unemployment market.

“We reached a consensus that the idea of a TRUST FUND to be managed for the development and capacity-building of young graduates and the expansion of infrastructures by the NYSC, all across Nigeria, will inevitably become one of the biggest economic legacies to be bequeathed by any national leader of Nigeria, alive or dead, and therefore we resolved to send a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari and Senate President and his counterpart in the Federal House of Representatives to encourage them to quicken the process of actualizing the setting up of the NYSC’S Youth Trust Fund.

“We think that it is imperative to have a vibrant Trust Fund for young graduates to harness and develop their skills, innate talents and creative gifts for national growth because it will tremendously serve the greatest national security interest of Nigeria. The NYSC Youth Trust Fund create constructive impacts in the youths sector similar to what the evolution of Nollywood industry did in Africa as a pacesetter and creator of wealth for talented youths," the statement read.

HURIWA recalled that a bill to establish a National Youth Service Corps Trust Fund has scaled through second reading at the House of Representatives.

Titled “A bill for an Act to establish the National Youth Service Corps Trust Fund Bill 2021,” it is sponsored by Hon. Samuel Akinfolarin. Details of the bill showed that it consists of 31 sections, 1 schedule and a supplemental of regulations of the proceedings of the Board, committees and miscellaneous of the trust Fund.

HURIWA said the Youth and Sports Minister was right to have described the bill as a mechanism that would readily provide start-up capital for graduates to set up their businesses on the skills acquired during the service year just as we applaud the minister for rationally concluding that the fund would help address infrastructural and other logistic needs for the smooth conduct of orientation courses. It will bolster the provision of corps lodges and transit camps, as well as other essential facilities for the welfare of the corps members.

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