The Federal Government on Wednesday commenced the payment of the new N77,000 monthly allowance for National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members.
Reports have confirmed that several members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) have received credit alerts reflecting the long-awaited increase in their monthly stipends. This development ends months of delays that had sparked widespread frustration and protests among corps members.
The payment comes just two days after the Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, assured Nigerians in a Channels TV interview that the backlog would be cleared by the end of March.
The Nigerian government had faced criticism for its prolonged delay in implementing the approved allowance hike, attributing the hold-up to budgetary constraints and bureaucratic bottlenecks.
During Monday’s interview, Olawande sought to explain the reasons behind the delay, though many corps members had grown increasingly impatient amid the prolonged wait.
“I have explained this several times. Some people say I always mention it’s a process, and it is seriously a process. It was not in the budget when the president announced it. Some agencies and parastatals need to have their salaries included in the budget before anything can be done or paid out,” he said.
The minister emphasised that while President Bola Tinubu had approved the allowance months ago, actual disbursement required budgetary allocations that had not been in place at the time of the announcement.
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