The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is considering fully decentralising the registration of prospective corps members from 2027, allowing graduates to complete the process from their homes, the scheme’s director-general said Monday.
Brigadier-General Olakunle Oluseye Nafiu made the announcement in Abuja at the opening of the 2026 Batch ‘C’ Pre-Orientation Workshop.
The move aims to end the long queues at cybercafés and ease the process, particularly for foreign-trained graduates who currently travel to Nigeria solely for registration before returning abroad and later coming back for service.
“In the coming year, the management is considering completely decentralising the registration process to enable prospective corps members to register from the comfort of their homes, eliminating the challenges of queuing at cybercafés to register,” Nafiu said.
“It will equally make registration easier and seamless for our foreign-trained PCMs, some of whom have to travel into the country to do registration and sometimes travel back before returning to the country to serve their fatherland. We feel that it is a needless journey and a relief for parents,” he added.
Separately, Youth Development Minister Ayodele Olawande praised security agencies for the recent rescue of 15 kidnapped corps members and renewed warnings against night travel.
“Therefore, don’t travel at night. I am planning to visit seven orientation camps to prostrate and beg them not to travel at night. Yes, everyone has been saying it, but we need to do it aggressively this time around,” Olawande said, noting that President Bola Tinubu was pleased with the rescue operation.
Nafiu said the workshop would allow the NYSC and stakeholders to review past orientation exercises, address emerging challenges such as new technologies, socio-economic uncertainties, misinformation and insecurity, and strengthen collaboration to protect corps members.
