By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja
The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has directed that all orientation camps nationwide be shut as preventive and precautionary measures against the dreaded coronavirus, which has been tagged a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
All the corps members at the various camps across the country have, consequently, been sent home.
The ongoing orientation for Batch A Stream 1 corps members was supposed to end on March 30, this year, before it was abruptly brought to an end 12 days earlier.
Some of the affected corps members confirmed to the Peoples Daily newspapers that the message was sent to them by the NYSC officials via short message service (SMS).
Confirming this in a statement, the NYSC management said, “Sequel to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic which led to the cancellation of the national sports festival, management of the National Youth Service Corps Scheme wishes to announce the suspension of the on-going orientation course for the 2020 Batch “A” stream 1 corps members.
“Therefore, the corps members shall be posted to commence their primary assignments forthwith, while they shall be invited back to the orientation camps when the situation improves, just like it happened a few years ago when the nation was confronted by the Ebola virus threat.
“Management wishes to state that no corps member or camp official has contracted the virus”, the statement said.
