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NYSC Signs MoU With NALDA To Boost Agricultural Productivity
Joel Ajayi
The National Youth Service Corps has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Agricultural Land Development Authority to boost food production in the country.
In statement signed by the Deputy Director NYSC’s Press and Public Relations Mr Emeka Mgbemena revealed that NYSC Director-General, Brigadier General Shuaibu Ibrahim during the signing of the MoU at the NYSC National Directorate Headquarters on Wednesday in Abuja, commended NALDA for recently training sixty-eight Corps Members as Soil Doctors and Extension Service Workers.
He also lauded the Executive Secretary of NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne, for his vision and strong passion for National development.
The DG said NYSC Scheme mobilizes more than 350,000 Corps Members annually and there was the need to tap their potentials for both personal and societal development.
He disclosed that the MoU would make the NYSC Farms become more active, with stakeholders’ support to enhance food sufficiency though the involvement of Corps Members.
General Ibrahim said NYSC introduced Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development Programme into its Orientation Course Content in 2012, in order to empower Corps Members with vocations and relevant skills that would reduce the increasing rate of unemployment among the youths.
“Many of our ex-Corps Members are fully established today in their States of deployment.”
“Our Corps Members are knowledgeable and very skillful, but they need public support with a conducive environment.”
“Be assured of our loyalty, as we are ready to move this partnership to the next level”, he said.
The Director-General renewed his appeal for the establishment of National Youth Service Trust Fund, whereby part of proceeds would be channelled as start-off funds for Corps Members to establish their businesses through the skills acquired during the service year, as well as maintenance of camp facilities.
He also appealed to Corps Members with passion in agric-business, to embrace the opportunity offered by NALDA through the National Young Farmers’ Scheme to be trained in modern farming methods.
Earlier in his address, the Executive Secretary, NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne said there is the need for increment in food security for all Nigerians.
He commended NYSC Management for establishing Bakery and water factory, and rejiging its farms across the country.
Ikonne, who described Corps Members as active youths that should be made more productive stated that NYSC Orientation Camp in Jigawa State was used for the training of the first set of young farmers.
“Nigeria is in dire need of creation of job opportunities and when the youths are meaningfully engaged, there will be productivity”.
“NYSC will provide the land that would be used to train Corps Members while NALDA is very much interested in the partnership. The collaboration will boost the country’s Gross Domestic Product”.
“We are confident of a good and sustainable collaboration because NALDA and NYSC are Federal Government Agencies”, he said.
Ikonne disclosed that NALDA is planning to establish Integrated Farm Estate that would soon be commissioned, adding that the project is loaded with attendant value-chain benefits from crop planting to consumption.
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ELECTING A POPE: THE BURDEN OF MAKING CHOICES
By Olubunmi Mayaki
“Habemus papam!” which in the English Language means, “We have a Pope.” was pronounced by Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, a French Catholic prelate, His Eminence, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti from the iconic loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican City on Thursday 8 May 2025 after white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. Those Latin words proclaimed to a tensed global audience the result of the election of a new Supreme Pontiff after the death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) on 21 April 2025 at the age of 88 years.
The Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Cardinal Robert Prevost (Pope Leo XIV) emerged as primus inter pares (first among equals) from the cardinals after undergoing detailed election rituals, which have been the process of selecting the head of the 2000-year-old Catholic Church for centuries.
A papal conclave, the process by which a new Pope is selected, was held consisting of one hundred and thirty-three (133) College of Cardinals, drawn from different parts of the world converged at St. Peter’s Basilica for a public mass before heading to the Sistine Chapel to cast their votes to elect the 267th Pope. During the mass, part of the choir renditions reminded voters to remember their last day when they would stand before God in judgment to render their stewardship on earth, which is to prevent them from rigging the voting process. At the behest of the senior cardinal deacon, voting formalities were read to the electors, which included- oath-taking- “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one whom I believe should be elected according to God”. Other processes are banning phones, jamming calls, forbidding speaking or contacting any of the candidates, voting rounds, spiritual pauses etc.
Looking at the voting process, one should be curious about how an election to pick a leader for a religious body could be so systematic and attract such global attention. It is a sharp contrast to elections where political leaders are chosen. Even in the so-called advanced democracies, we have seen electoral flaws and a dearth of political leaders. States are finding it difficult to pick genuine statesmen, giving rise to hegemonic leaders. These political imperia ums are emerging and stoking crises in their domain. Fallouts of elections are no longer favourable due to unpopular candidates forced on citizens.
Africa, as a case study, shows that no matter the rules put in place by the continent’s leaders, our election processes have been fraught with rigging, corruption and waste. In most cases, the leaders who set the rules are the violators of the same process. Governments conspire with electoral bodies to truncate election processes at will. Such political brigandage has destroyed the progress of the continent.
Closing this view, I hope that African leaders will take a cue from the Catholic Church’s election process to reinvigorate and rejig the continent’s faltering political process for the good of its people. Better still; political scholars from the continent can study the Catholic model. The common features of elections in most parts of Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, are riddled with vote rigging, violence, human rights abuse, repression, barbarism, crises, untold hardship, and sometimes, outright war. This is the bane of Africa’s development.
The burden of making good political choices should ordinarily rest on citizens. However, politicians have hijacked this process for selfish reasons. It has given birth to bad leaders. If we fail to get it right, what we see is what we get. That is the story of the world politics!
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