Members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) have started receiving an increased monthly allowance of N77,000, six months after the increment was first announced by the scheme’s management.
The NYSC had initially revealed in September 2024 that corps members’ stipends would be raised from N33,000 to N77,000, following an increase in Nigeria’s minimum wage. At the time, the management stated that the new payment structure was effective from July 2024.
Last week, Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, the Director-General of the NYSC, confirmed that the corps would begin disbursing the new allowance starting in March. On Wednesday, several corps members who received their stipends for the month confirmed that they had been paid the new amount.
However, there is still uncertainty about whether NYSC will compensate corps members for the backlog dating back to July 2024, when the increment was meant to take effect.
NYSC Allowance History
The NYSC scheme is a mandatory one-year national service program for Nigerian graduates under the age of 30. Since 2020, corps members had been receiving N33,000 as their monthly stipend, an amount that was directly linked to the country’s minimum wage.
Previously, in 2020, the stipend was raised from N19,800 to N33,000 after the federal government implemented a new minimum wage of N30,000.
The latest increase was triggered by President Bola Tinubu’s approval of a new minimum wage of N70,000 in July 2024, which led to the upward adjustment of NYSC allowances.
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