Minister asks NYSC to stop early morning drills in orientation camps

Minister of Youth, Comrade Ayodele Olawande, has proposed a change in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme to provide corps members with adequate rest during their 21-day orientation camp.

During the 2025 annual management conference in Abuja themed ‘Transforming the NYSC Scheme to meet the yearnings of the contemporary Nigerian graduates and society’, the minister urged the NYSC management to consider adjusting the camp schedule to start drills later in the day, around 7:00 am instead of the current 4:00 am routine. This, he believes, will help the corps members to be more active and engaged.

Committed to the welfare of Nigerian youths, the minister has initiated consultations to implement this proposed change.

He said, “The NYSC members should be allowed to start their drilling by 7:00 am and not 4:00 am.

“Is drilling the purpose for us to do things? Of what purpose is drilling to us? We are not saying drilling should not be there. Drilling should be there. But we talk about unity in diversity. We are bringing them together in unity, and that is the major purpose.

“So how can we still stay on the purpose of bringing new innovation? When you are active, when you are doing research, when you are doing things differently, when you are making up in life and all that within three weeks, how can you be lazy? You can’t be lazy.

“What we are saying is to recharge the brain and make the brain work from what we have now, so that you can have the job market

“Since when we’ve been drilling, are we viable in the job market? We can’t continue to be putting people out every year, 480,000 [every year] and no improvement.

“See, there’s nothing. There’s no job, there is no house, there is no institution that you keep on doing the same thing every time, and if you want a different result, you cannot have it.

“So that is why we are saying we are looking beyond. We want to even think outside the bus, so that we can get it and that is why you see all these directors, I can tell you, they have the energy. Now, the energy is back, and they want to do the right thing, not that they were not doing the right thing before, but he wants to do it more.