Orphanages and child welfare organisations across Nigeria have showered praise on the Director-General of the Department of State Services, DSS, Oluwatosin Adeola Ajayi, for absorbing 27 qualified orphans drawn from diverse professional fields into the Service, describing the ongoing exercise as a compassionate intervention capable of reshaping the lives of young Nigerians long consigned to the margins of society.
The endorsements, coming from orphanage administrators and child welfare advocates, cast the recruitment as a deliberate policy shift — one that hands otherwise disadvantaged young people a genuine pathway to contribute to national development and build stable careers within Nigeria’s security architecture.
For the beneficiaries, the appointments have landed as a turning point. “Having been raised in orphanages with limited prospects, the chance to serve in the DSS is something I never imagined possible,” said Rev. Sister Antonella Okeke, Director of the Holy Child Motherless Babies Home, Holy Ghost, Enugu North, Enugu State, speaking on behalf of some of the recruits under her care.
Beyond the paycheque, care home leaders said, the recruitment has restored something less tangible but arguably more valuable — a sense of identity, direction and belonging for young people who grew up without the anchor of a family.
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Speaking in the same vein, the administrator of the Margaret Garba Orphanage and Home in Adavi Local Government Area of Kogi State, Rufina Edache Ejembi, said the Director-General’s decision carried a message that reached well beyond the 27 slots on offer. According to her, the move signals that no Nigerian child should be written off on account of background or family circumstance.
The administrators used the occasion to challenge other arms of government, as well as private sector employers, to emulate the DSS by throwing open similar windows of opportunity to young Nigerians languishing in orphanages nationwide.
“This initiative is so commendable and part of the agency’s efforts to build a more inclusive and humane institution — one that looks beyond paperwork and privilege to find talent and potential in every corner of Nigerian society,” one of the administrators declared.
The recruitment exercise, which the Service says is still ongoing, is being read within the child welfare community as a template for institutional inclusion — and a quiet but pointed rebuke to the culture of exclusion that has long shadowed public sector hiring in the country.
Crediblenewsng.com
