 I'm very delighted to be here to address you on this special occasion of the conferment of the President's NYC Honours Award on these worthy young men and women who have deleted himself in the nation through the National Youth Service Corps. I'm especially pleased by the fact that we are gathered here to honour a time-tested tradition. The recognition and celebration of young Nigerians who by hard work, innovation, sacrifice and self-serve service have distinguished themselves as NYC members in various states. I commend both the management and staff of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the NYC for reviving this noble ideal of recognising and rewarding excellence. The National Youth Service Corps is an indisputable national heritage established in 1973 by his Excellency and Elder's Excellency, General Yakupu Gohan, who himself at the time was just 39 years old. To promote national integration and cohesion, beyond this, the program has become an important complement to national development by making a valuable manpower to meet Nigeria's requirements in education and health, infrastructure, development and many other areas. The NYC has from the beginning been about opportunities, opportunities for young Nigerians to serve, to earn a living, to travel, to see, to learn about their country and to go beyond their comfort zones and also to build lifelong friendships. The important role that these young people, especially members of the NYC have played in ensuring the peaceful conduct of the 2015 elections and the 2019 General Elections and several elections in between offer clear evidence that when positively engaged in national building and national activities, our country stands to gain tremendously from its brilliant set of young people. At this point, I invite you all to rise and observe a minute silence in honor of those commoners who and their service to this nation lost their lives. May their souls rest in peace. Please sit. Coming me to speak briefly on three core ideas that may be useful to remember here, especially as this is a government of Nigeria's present and its future, especially you, the brightest and best who are being celebrated today. One and the first of these is that it is the exceptional individuals in society who are the true builders of institutions and nations. These exceptional individuals like yourselves are not necessarily those from the wealthiest homes or the most fortunate circumstances. Indeed, they may be from the most humble circumstances and they may not even be the most academically successful in their care, but they are the young men and women who somehow know that true greatness comes from seven others and from seven ones community. It is the vision, the innovation and hard work of just one person that will make a difference in the life of a community or a nation. We have seen in the outstanding work of many of you who are here today that indeed your innovation, your hard work, just you alone, by your own vision, you've been able to contribute so much and so profoundly to the development of the communities that you serve. So just one person can make a substantial difference in the life of the community and the life of the people of any nation. The third is that enduring individual success is a function of the current and resilience that we bring to our lives. I was challenged here by the remarkable current of those con members who suffered various accidents while in service and they belong to the group that have been described as the Hope Our Life Group. The fact that these young men and women have gone through these harrowing personal injuries, but they are still determined to engage the future with hope and confidence is proof that they will experience the joys of great success and fulfillment in their lives and that their future is in the work. But it is a greater lesson to all of us that whatever the setbacks that we may experience in life, it is to be used as a stepping stone. It should not be seen as the end, it should not be seen as the dark road of our lives. Indeed it may well be the beginning of even a much better future. So all of today's honorees, let me make it clear that you are not just the future of our country, but you are also its present. You must all see yourselves as the leaders that you are, but leadership as you know comes with responsibility and continual sacrifice. The successes you have achieved and are being rewarded for today could inspire you to even greater things in your various fears of human fulfillment. I therefore charge you all to continue to be the light for others to follow while seeing yourselves as life-longed ambassadors of the NYC. In my view, they are the policies of encouraging and rewarding excellence amongst our youth. I hereby announce the immediate employment of the federal service of all the award winners. In addition, the federal government offers each of you automatic scholarships. Distinguished guests, I commend the National Selection Committee for the painstaking and rigorous process that brought these young men who worked in national lifeline. The entire nation owes a huge debt of gratitude to the managers of the NYC and the successive batches of call members for the patriotic seal with which you have collectively implemented the cardinal programs of the scheme over the past four years and over the past four and a half decades, whether it was past 40 and a half years. May I also pay tribute to the founding father of the NYC and all of you who have shared ideas that you knew would serve our country well, would serve the youth of our country well. And we see today, so many years after you founded this big scheme, being demonstrated by these young men and women who were not even born, they were not even an idea at the time. But this was good. Thank you very, very much and we congratulate and commend you for your efforts on the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and the NYC for the hard work they have done really important to this, to create jobs, skills and position, and other youth entrepreneurship development initiatives. The federal executive council recently approved the 2019-2023 national youth programs presented by the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development for implementation by the Ministry and all stakeholders. This is to enable the NYC to build on its achievements. All stakeholders must discharge their statutory obligations as felt out in the enabling act. I urge all states and local governments to give greater support to the scheme, especially through the provision and coverage of current implementation plans, the obvious performance and other welfare facilities. Once again, may I congratulate all the honorees on this world-deserved recognition and that the entire nation salutes your determination, your courage, your selfless service, your discipline and hard work. And this you've exhibited during all of your service years. God bless you all. God bless my people.