Sir: Established by Decree (now Act) No. 24 of 22nd May 1973, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) was enshrined into the nation’s constitution in furtherance of the federal government’s post war policy of Reconstruction, Reconciliation and Rehabilitation after the Nigeria-Biafra civil war of 1967 to 1970.
Most corps members serve their country by teaching in public/private schools irrespective of their discipline. What experience will an engineering graduate get from teaching mathematics in a high school? What experience will a banking and finance graduate get from teaching biology in a secondary school? How many corps members have you seen serving in commercial banks? Or how many law graduates have you seen serving in courts?
If a mechanical engineering graduate would teach physics in a secondary school as a corps member; then what would a graduate of physics education do? And if the mechanical engineering graduates teach physics in a secondary school, then who would get the one-year experience to build our cars? Or is it the physics graduate? Or perhaps Nigeria has no intention of manufacturing cars?
Nigeria is complex and multi-faceted country. This can be seen in many areas- tribes, languages, religion, culture and beliefs, ideologies, etc. all of which makes the country a maze. Suffice to say that the NYSC was instituted for the very purpose of uniting the country. It was intended that young people would as a matter of relationships and living together, get to know each other, understand, tolerate and ultimately inter-marry; hence consummating the very objective of unification.
At a time when the government seems to have lost its grip on the security of the country; an unsuspecting graduate naturally gets cold feet when he receives the notification that he/she has been posted to serve in the north. Such a poor and hapless student does all he/she can to change that; that is redirect his posting to a closer and more familiar region. If every graduate in the south, for instance, becomes apprehensive when posted to serve in the north (particularly in the tension prone areas), then how exactly would these set of Nigerians be united with the northern set which again is the objective of the NYSC?
Lives have been cut short in their prime. Parents have lost sons and daughters in faraway lands in the name of serving one’s country. Some of them could not even at least, retrieve their bodies. The hope of a better future for families who depended on their sons and daughters in whom they have invested all they had hoping that they will give back in ten folds after graduation from the university have been dashed.
“A master who cannot guarantee the safety of a slave while he lives in his home, is not worthy of the services of that slave”. This again is decent enough to say. Quote me.
- Emenike Lucky,
Federal University of Technology, Owerri.