The Federal Government has approved a comprehensive reform of the National Youth Service Corps since its establishment in 1973, replacing military leadership with a civilian Director-General.
It also restructured the one-year scheme into 11 specialised skills-based streams, redesigned the orientation camp programme and uniform, and directed the amendment of the NYSC Act to give immediate legal effect to the changes.
This followed Monday’s Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the Council Chamber of the State House, Abuja.
It is the first in three months since March 4, 2026, when the President swore in Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Disu.
Briefing State House correspondents after the meeting, the Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Wisdom, said the reform process for the NYSC began in 2025 when a committee was constituted to carry out a full review of the scheme, adding that the outcome represented a fundamental repositioning of the NYSC from a mobilisation exercise into a platform for skills development, job creation, productivity and national growth.
He explained, “The NYSC was created in 1973 to promote national unity after the civil war. For 53 years, it has helped bring together Nigerian graduates and strengthen national unity. But today, our needs as a country have changed, and many expect the objectives of NYSC to also change.
“Our review found a number of challenges with NYSC, outdated laws, weak links between education and jobs, and concerns about the safety and welfare of corps members, among others.”
The minister noted that the Ministries of Youth Development and Education and the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination worked together to develop the reform framework, adding that the council was invited to ratify the framework, the new organisational structure, and the directive to begin amending the NYSC Act and related regulations.
The Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination, Hadiza Bala-Usman, who has oversight of the reform implementation, described the move as the first holistic reform of the scheme in its 53-year history and linked the overhaul to the administration’s ambition of building a one-trillion-dollar economy.
She said, “One of the important things on the basis of which we decided to embark on this reform process is that there is a need for us to intervene to build the present ambition of a $1tn economy by repositioning NYSC as a civilian-led, skill-oriented, productivity-driven and youth-empowering national institution.
“Indeed, as mentioned, the NYSC has been in existence for 53 years, and this is the first time there has been a holistic reform.
“The reform areas speak to all the strategic aspects of NYSC, starting from the area of the main area of deployment, how you are registering, what modality is being used to post you to several states, how we are recognising the areas where we have security challenges.”
She said the reform now segments the NYSC into 11 distinct core streams, which every corps member will be required to select upon registration based on academic background and personal skills profile.
The streams are the Agriculture Core, the Medical Core, the Education Core, the Technology and Digital Core, the Legal Core, the Public Service Core, the Infrastructure Core, the Green Core, the Enterprise Core, the Creative Economy Core, and the Paramilitary and Security Core.
“When you come in as a youth corps member, you will now pick which stream you want to participate in. Once you have uploaded and been recognised and accepted as a corps member, you are required to pick one of those cores, and once you register in that, certain trainings will be given for each of those cores within the two weeks,” Usman explained.
The orientation camp programme, she revealed further, will be redesigned from its current format into a structured six-week curriculum divided into three distinct two-week phases.
“The first two weeks speak to laying a foundation on civic responsibility, you will be made aware of what civic duties mean, our national values and leadership development.
“The next two weeks will look at career mapping, basic accounting literacy skills, business planning and access to finance, how do we access finance and then we intend to introduce a structured career day programme to enable corps members to engage directly with the public.
“The final two weeks, we intend to have focused corps-stream-specific training aligned with the corps member’s designated stream based on his choice, his academic background and skills profile,” Usman said.
She noted that for streams requiring longer certification periods, such as the Digital Core, where relevant certifications may span three to six months, corps members would remain in structured training rather than being posted to primary assignment locations.
“We want them to have skills that will enable them to be self-employed,” she said.
The new management structure will be headed by a civilian Director-General, supported by three Executive Directors and a security directorate to be led by a military or paramilitary officer, she revealed.
Responding to questions on the security implications of removing military operational leadership, Usman argued that the arrangement will preserve the military’s core protective function while transferring administrative authority to civilian professionals.
She also noted that the Passing-Out Parade will be redesigned and renamed as a graduation ceremony.
The NYSC uniform, she added, would also be overhauled to reflect a more professional identity while preserving its distinctive character.
Usman confirmed that the Attorney-General of the Federation, working with the Ministry of Youth Development, has been directed to amend the NYSC Act and related regulations to give immediate legal backing to the approved changes.