By Monday Ajogun
Benin – Gov. Godwin Obaseki of Edo has advised National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members to shun all forms of social vices, especially drug addiction, internet fraud, cultism, prostitution and kidnapping.
He gave the advice on Wednesday in Benin at the closing of the 2018 NYSC Batch `A’ Orientation Course.
The governor, who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Mr Philip Shaibu, urged the corps members to embrace Federal Government’s “Change Begins with Me’’ initiative, saying it was aimed at restoring national values.
He charged them to take their postings in good faith as they were in consonance with the NYSC policy.
Obaseki advised them to integrate with the people in the rural areas and respect the culture of their host communities, adding that people of the state were “very friendly and God-fearing’’.
He challenged the corps members to surpass the achievements of their predecessors through execution of developmental and life-transforming projects which would leave their host communities better than they met them.
He assured of his administration’s commitment to addressing corps members’ welfare “within available resources’’, and announced that work at the NYSC permanent orientation camp in the state would be given priority.
Earlier, Coordinator of NYSC in the state, Mallam Abdullahi Yusuf, said that the 2, 137 members deployed to the state had been equipped in the orientation programme, for the challenges of the service year.
Yusuf said that the corps members exhibited very high level of discipline and maintained admirable decorum, which culminated in the hitch-free and successful orientation.
He disclosed that more than 75 per cent of the corps members had been deployed to educational institutions in the state “to impact knowledge in our young ones’’.