The National Youth Service Corps has appealed to the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to help in replicating the Information and Communication Technology Centre it established at the Federal Capital Territory Orientation Camp in other State Secretariats in order to further strengthen the ICT platform of the Scheme.
The NYSC Director-General, Shu’aibu Ibrahim, who was at the NITDA Corporate Headquarters in Abuja, pleaded with NITDA to avail more State Secretariats with the opportunity given to the FCT Secretariat.
General Ibrahim recalled that NITDA and NYSC have a long-standing relationship that dated back to when the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, was the Director-General of the agency.
He stated that he want to strengthen the collaborations that exist between the two government agencies.
The NYSC boss noted that strengthening the partnership would assist the Corps to overcome some of the challenges it is facing, especially on checkmating the spread of fake news on the social media.
Citing an example with the story of a JSS2 student alleged to have impregnated a Corp metmber, the NYSC DG described the abuse of social media as worrisome and appealed to NITDA to stem the tide.
“Something has to be done to checkmate the menace of social media to save us from various embarrassments. Things that have happened in the past are now being put forth on social media to look like recent events. People are using the platforms to defraud unsuspecting members of the public”.
“You can imagine people creating accounts to defraud Corps Members that they can help them to be redeployed”.
He called for the arrest of such people to serve as a deterrent to others which would also reduce the menace.
While responding to the NYSC’s request, the NITDA Director-General, Kashifu Abdullahi, assured that NITDA would look into the requests and start the intervention this year.
He said NITDA has done a lot in building the capacity of Corps Members serving in the agency but “we can expand it to cover the FCT as a pilot project”.
Mr Abdullahi stated that it became pertinent for the agencies of government to partner together in helping to build the skills of the Corps Members because “what most Corps Members have is the knowledge and we need to help them in transforming the knowledge to skills so it can be beneficial to them and make them self reliance.”
He added that “NYSC is a gateway organisation that can be used to harness the potential of the youths in the country which will aid the nation in his drive to transform the economy to digital economy.
Mr Abdullahi noted that the agency has built ICT hubs and Digital Job Capacity Centre across the country which he said can be used in transforming knowledge to skills.
He called on the youths not only to use their devices for social media alone as it is distracting and time wastage but to learn skills online and make money.
“Social media abuse is a burning issues that disturbs everyone; we have to work with other government agencies to collaborate on solving the issue. There is need to regulate it and people should be held responsible for whatever content they posted”, he said.
