The National Youths Service Corps has called for collaborative efforts from all stakeholders in addressing increasing rate of drug abuse and addiction among corps members.

The Ondo State Coordinator of the NYSC, Mrs Victoria Ani, said the addiction among the corps members needed to be addressed because the rate was alarming.

Ani spoke at the 2021 corps employers’ workshop in Akure, the state capital, on Wednesday.

The workshop was themed, ‘Optimizing the NYSC/ corps employers partnership for national development in the context of the New Normal.’

The state coordinator, who said many corps members were drug addicts, called on the employers of the corps members to rehabilitate instead of rejecting such corps members.

The stakeholders who attended the workshop had earlier complained that many corps members deployed in their establishments for primary assignment engaged in drug abuse.

But Ani said, “For the corps members that take weeds (cannabis), I need to let you know that NYSC is doing so much. Many of our children (corps members) are drug addicts. When we go to camp, we start from day one to tell them that if they were into it, it was an opportunity for them to drop such habits.

“In our very orientation, we had one that was suffering from withdrawal syndrome and we managed this boy. As a matter of fact, when we are going to the orientation camp, we take collaborative agencies, including the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, to the ones that are really into drug.

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“In the scheme, we counsel them. Another female corps member brought over 100 tablets of a certain drug to the camp; so the issue of drug abuse is getting alarming. Some will wake up in the midnight and be shouting till daybreak.”

In his remarks, the Director-General of the corps, Brig. General, Shuaibu Ibrahim, who was represented by Director, NYSC South-West Area office, Mr Tunde Fadairo, said employers had no right to  approve the letter of leave or travel for corps members, saying it was only  the state coordinator that could do so.

NYSC gives free medical services

Meanwhile, the Benue State Coordinator of the National Youth Service Corps, Mr Abe Ashumate, has encouraged the Internally Displaced Persons in the state to embrace the medical outreach programme of the corps.

Ashumate stated this at the IDPs Camp Abegana along Makurdi-Laafia road on Tuesday during the inauguration of medical outreach programme by the state NYSC, tagged, ‘Health Initiative for Rural Dwellers.’

The programme, according to the coordinator, was aimed at  ensuring that the displaced persons  have access to quality medical services.

In a statement by the state Public Relations Officer, Victoria Ogwuche, the coordinator said, “We ensure that rural communities that don’t have access or cannot afford quality medical service from professionals can also have them like those living in the city.

“We know it’s not your wish to be in IDPs camp, and that you deserve good service from Nigerian government, but NYSC being an agency in Federal Government has deemed it fit to come closer to you towards giving you the medical services you could not get.”

Responding, the IDPs Camp Manager, Mr Iliagh Terhile, expressed gratitude to the organisation.