Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, claimed that the very existence of state governments in Nigeria is now tied to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Speaking with conviction at a high-profile Stakeholders’ Consultative Forum on NYSC Reform in Abuja, Olawande went as far as to say the NYSC is not just a symbol of unity but the lifeline for grassroots development,and, by implication, the only reason some states are still functioning.

The Minister didn’t mince words, hailing the NYSC as an “indispensable” institution whose importance, he insisted, has only escalated over time. “The NYSC is a platform of unity, nation-building, and national development... we are all doing our best to make sure that it survives and nothing happens to it,” he stressed, underlining the supposed universal dependency on the corps. Critics, however, wonder if this is an overstatement given the challenges the scheme faces.

Olawande’s boldest claim: “There is no state government that can survive without corps members.” According to him, NYSC participants are now essential in sectors like education, health, agriculture, and sports, to the point that removing them would leave state systems in ruins. Is this an exaggeration, or is the NYSC truly holding up the entire nation’s public sector?

He demanded a major overhaul of the NYSC posting system, arguing that graduates are too often wasted in irrelevant roles,a problem he says hurts both the youths and the communities in desperate need of their specialized skills. The Minister called for urgent reforms, apparently suggesting the current model is outdated and ineffective.

Adding fuel to the fire, NYSC Director General Brigadier-General Olakunle Nafiu threw out some jaw-dropping figures, claiming the scheme now mobilizes 400,000 graduates annually, with projections of up to 650,000 in the near future. “We expect that 650,000 locally trained graduates will come knocking to serve their fatherland next year,” Nafiu boasted, touting the NYSC as more vital than ever before.

But the numbers didn’t end there. Nafiu asserted that states are saving between N30 billion and N40 billion a year thanks to NYSC deployments, and that the FCT alone receives 400 doctors from the scheme annually,a number state governments allegedly could never recruit on their own. Is the NYSC now a substitute for conventional hiring in the public sector?

Nafiu also claimed that NYSC members are the solution to crises in education, with states supposedly demanding large numbers of corps members to fill gaps that regular recruitment can’t. “The scheme at the sub-national level is doing a lot to sustain the socio-economic status of states across the federation,” he said, painting the NYSC as a miracle worker for state budgets and basic services.

Meanwhile, Hadiza Bala Usman, Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination, jumped on the bandwagon, urging a “collaborative” overhaul of the NYSC. Her statement,“No reform of this scale can succeed without collaborative participation”,raised more questions than answers about who is actually willing and able to implement such sweeping changes.

With the NYSC now portrayed as the single point of failure for state governance, officials are trumpeting reforms to make the scheme “relevant and effective” for modern Nigeria.