Prospective corps members have appealed to the National Youth Service Corps to reopen orientation camps for the commencement of service.

Some of them, who spoke with SaharaReporters, asked the NYSC management to post them directly to organizations currently operating without camping as recommended by ‪Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.

One corps member, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, said,

“We registered to commence service before the lockdown. We were unable to go for camping because the first stream was already filled.

We were thus told to wait for the second stream. Unfortunately, the Coronavirus lockdown started while stream 1 camping was ongoing. It was suspended, and the camps were closed.

“We are getting older and our months are essentially wasting, in the sense that, going this way, we will be forced to do the same service for 12 months after all these is over.

The pandemic has brought financial hardships on us and our parents. At a time we ought to package our profiles and apply for jobs to ease the hardship, we are being held back for having not served.

“Some of us have to commence graduate studies next year. It is only reasonable that we know when our service ends so we can plan our applications and preparations accordingly.

We are now been indefinitely held back by the silence from the NYSC management. Commencing service and having to spend likely 12 more months than our colleagues in stream I practically render some of us ineligible to apply for most jobs with age restrictions.

“In light of this, we humbly request that the concerned authorities consider our demands.

“Should ‪@officialnysc consider the above to not be feasible yet, they should activate our profiles and make our months of waiting on their decision count out of our service year.”