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President Muhammadu Buhari has saluted a former head of state, General Yakubu Gowon (retd), for the wisdom of setting up the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in 1973.

The president, in a statement Friday by his spokesman, Femi Adesina, said the NYSC had achieved the goal of national integration by providing opportunities for cross-cultural interactions and establishing a bridge for improved understanding.

President Buhari congratulated the former head of state and all the directors-general of the corps, past and present, “for inspiring and sustaining a 50-year legacy that had strengthened a web of solidarity; ignited loyalty to the country; broadened the horizon of citizens, promoted civic responsiveness, created a better understanding of various individual and ethnic identities, their diversities and underscored the bottom-line of the common values of fairness, justice, peace and unity.”

Buhari said the NYSC remained one of the strongest ideals of nation-building by institutionally encouraging inter-cultural and inter-religious marriages, resettling of people of various tribes in different parts of the country; exploration of entrepreneurship and business opportunities in places and enabling a new culture of oneness, brotherliness and neighborliness.

The president said the scheme must be sustained, with a constant reminder of the history, structure and purpose that should not be abused, trivialised or undermined for any reason, by keeping a focus on the larger picture that Nigeria’s unity was a process and a collective responsibility that must not be negotiated.

Buhari recalled that one of the joys and highlights of his administration had been the annual ritual of receiving corps members in his country home in Daura, Katsina State, during Eid-el-Fitr Sallah and the conversations that followed in getting to know their various states, languages, family trees and educational institutions, and asking about their welfare; noting that two visiting presidents from Niger Republic and Guinea participated and enjoyed such interactions.