The Nation Newspaper

Tag: NYSC

  • Hoodlums strip corps members, collect pants, sanitary pads

    Two female members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC serving in Ebonyi state have become the latest victims of the pants for rituals practice presently ravaging the country.

    The two corps member, it was gathered, were reportedly forced by unidentified hoodlums to remove their clothes including their pants and hand them over to the hoodlums.

    One of the corps members, who was on her period also had her blood socked pants and sanitary pads taken away by the hoodlums.

    The incident, it was learnt, happened at Oshiegbe community, near the boundary between Ohaukwu and Ezza North local government area of Ebonyi State.

    Police spokesman in the State, Loveth Odah confirmed the incident.

    She said: “On 5th of February, 2019, Female corps members reported to Divisional Headquarters in Ohaukwu Local Government Area to report that on their way coming from Ezillo in Ishielu Local Government Area to Abakaliki, a Jeep stopped in front of them and asked them to pay N200 each to be conveyed to Abakaliki. They entered”.

    According to the spokesman, on reaching 135 Junction, at Ezzamgbo, the men diverted to another direction and told them that they wanted to pick something from a teacher at St. Michael Secondary School, Ezzamgbo.

    “When they got to Oshiegbe community, at the boundary area between Ohaukwu and Ezza North Local Government Areas, the driver stopped and came down”.

    Read Also: NYSC tasks corps members on credibility

    “He told them that he wanted to ease himself. He immediately went to the back door, opened the door and pointed a gun at them; ordering them to come down and give them all their cloths including their pants.

    The spokesman said that one of the corps members shed tears when she remembered that she was in her period.

    “They collected their pants and her sanitary pad and drove off. Before driving off, they collected their phones and smashed them on the spot”.

    “We also learnt that when they meet women who are not wearing pants, they give them pants and force them to wear them for about five minutes before taking them away from their victims”, Odah said.

    She urged travelers to always go to designated motor parks to board vehicles to avoid such attacks.

  • CAN NYSC BE RESTRUCTURED?

    The travails of the Civil War in 1967—1970 in Nigeria has jeopardised the peaceful co-existence among ethnic groups in Nigeria. During the administration of the then Gen.Yakubu Gowon, he embarked on the operation of 3Rs which stands for Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction of Nigeria.

    It was during this operation that the National Youth Service Corps was created in 22nd of may, 1973. The scheme was established based on decree No 24 which states its establishment.

    Today, however, NYSC is bedevilled some structural deficiencies which must be addressed. These include caustic working environment, lack of welfare amenities, poor feeding of Corps members on national duties, tribalism and nepotism among NYSC officials, etc.

    The question thus is, can NYSC be restructured?

    First, all sorts of residential inconveniences at the camp sites should be fixed before the arrival of Corpers. This is to ensure they are well taken care of, even as they serve their fatherland.

    Nepotism and favouritism are highly rampant in the firmament of NYSC. When Corpers still have to pay some token to officials in camps and secretariats to get things done, is the Scheme not then guiding partcipants in the way of corruption?

    After all, we’ve seen many corpers serving in their state of origin— which is against the rules of the Scheme. How else could they have bypassed that rule, uncaught, if not through bribery or nepotism? This has to be restructured.

    Unemployment, also, has been known as a major phenomenon baffling this Nation. As the number of graduates increase rapidly, on yearly basis, so does the number of unemployed youth. Therefore, this is the time to start looking into NYSC for a solution to this problem.

    After a year of service, the Corpers should be posted to work place like companies, schools, and industries. And they can also be retained at places where they are Initially posted to. If this can be done, I think NYSC can serve as a panacea to unemployment in Nigeria, and unemployment will become the thing of past.

    Faozy Aduagba, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.

  • WHY RESTRUCTURING OF NYSC IS NECESSARY

    The National Youth Service Corps ( NYSC ) scheme has over the years degenerated in its aims and objectives on which its creation was based.

    While the most cherished aspect of it is to serve our fatherland, persistence insurgencies harming the nation have made average youths despise the scheme, most especially when put into consideration the stipend called allowance, and the neglect after the programme.

    It then becomes difficult for one to risk their life from a particular region to the deadly region where Boko Haram massacre innoncent souls, or to places where kidnapping is the order of the day. Many ways have been employed by corp members to avoid these axis and in most cases, through what can be tagged “back doors.”

    There is however need for salient steps to make the scheme convenient and more productive to Nigeria’s economy.

    First, rather than posting most of these youths to places like local government councils, government corporations, offices and the likes, most especially schools wherein there are enough teachers on ground, they can be diverted into other areas.

    Education sector is filled already, what needs to be done is to improve the provision of educational equipment and infrastructures. None of these places enlisted above is having lesser workers.

    What do we now say of the Agricultural sector to which backs have been turned by the youths? This is a sector that contributes 21% of the Nigerian economy. It has not been able to to keep up with its rapidness on production rate. Nigeria which has once be a major in exporting food, now imports most of her food products.

    It is the task of the government to introduce the youths to such area, as no youth is willing to go back to farm after the years they have spent in the university.

    This is mainly because of being ignorance about the dividends. Even if it is based on subsistence level, because to feed a family, is to feed a nation. Seminars and orientations should be held to educate this youths.

    They should be provided with the active factor, which is land and other factors of production. Since much capital is not required.

    Second, let the allowance be increased if not hugely but to a pocketful amount. The expenses of each Youth Corp during service is inestimable. So, this does not create chance for saving out that token given.

    Then how do youths get capital to help themselves at the end of the year?

    The allowance should, as earlier said be, increased to a pocketful amount, then divided into two. One should be given at the end of each month and the cumulation of the second part should be given at the end of service.

    For instance, if N30,000 is to be allocated to a Youth Corp, let N15,000 be given monthly and the remaining N15,000 which will be cumulating N180,000 be given at the end of the year. With this huge amount a sensible youth should be able to establish themselves.

    With respect to the former suggestion which is diversion into agricultural sector, this latter suggestion will help in establishment with the knowledge acquired from orientations, seminars and practical which they undergo. Even if it will be on a small scale farming, it will have its own qouta to add to Nigerian economy.

    The demand for agricultural products in Nigeria and abroad will always be on the highest level as food will always be inevitable. Therefore, every youth can dwell into this demand and establish an agro-allied business, creating chance for enormous wealth for him/herself.

    The reason why every youth who wishes to become an entrepreneur must look into agriculture is that, there are endless opportunities awaiting. And it’s high time we recognized them to boost up our nation’s economy.

    Tijani Ibrahim, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.

  • HEALING THE ILLS OF NYSC

    The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), created on 22nd May, 1973, is a scheme through which Nigerians, who are below the age 30, are obliged to serve the nation for few months, after their graduation from their various tertiary institutions.

    This scheme was created after the civil war that lasted for 30 months; to breed unity and tolerance amongst Nigerians. Thus, youths from the North are sent to the South and those from the South are deployed to the North, vice versa. The target is getting these youths acquainted with diverse cultures and religious beliefs. For tolerance comes with peace, and there would be no tolerance without understanding our differences.

    However, the two main essence of setting up this scheme, promoting national unity and engaging youths in nation building, are fast approaching defeat. These days, the option of seeking redeployment by corps members has become as easy as swatting a fly; the decision of which part of the country one should serve is now very much in the hands of corps members. Thus, a Southerner would at best go outside his/her state to another Southern state. Same thing happens with youth of other parts of the country.

    With the misuse of this option by those in charge to earn money from these corps members, who are unwilling to leave their comfort zones to other parts of the country, one is safe to say the aim of the scheme (NYSC), is approaching defeat, or has been the defeated.

    If one should do a survey of northerners serving in the South East today, you will find the statistics discouraging. Do same in the North, you will find a handful of Easterners but it will interest you to know that, the chunk of them reside and schooled in the North. With this, how are we to get acquainted with our diverse cultures?
    Of course, there are corps members with good reasons for seeking redeployment; but the question is, do we really scrutinize applications for redeployment?

    Nowadays, it is more about who you know or what you can offer to be redeployed. If really we are committed to promoting unity, the issue of redeployment is one we need to revisit. If NYSC finds a particular state secure and conducive, then it should take the required procedure to secure redeployment.
    Another issue that has to be revisited if we want a productive NYSC, is the basis of posting members to their place of primary assignment (PPA).

    Read Also: WANTED: A REFURBISHED NYSC

    Corps members are sent to PPAs that have no relation to their disciplines. I know a serving corps member whom studied Soil and Crop Sciences, but is currently teaching Literature-in-English, in a secondary school. Can you imagine a science students teaching art courses?

    There are many cases like this one. You don’t expect productivity when you have square pegs in round holes. The NYSC should be a give and take scheme. Corps members should be sent to places where they can effectively contribute their quota to the development of the nation and at the same time sharpen their teeth with regards their discipline.

    “Now Your Struggles Continue,” is a perfect interpretation of the acronym NYSC. After four or more than four years of struggling for degree or HND, graduates have another 11 months hurdle to scale. Eleven months of serving the nation with a N19, 800 take-home that can’t take them home.
    There are even cases where corps members are sent to PPAs without provision of accommodation, they rent rooms with this “peanut,” feed themselves, and pay transport fare. With this, you still expect them to be productive? It’s high time the government increased corps members’ allowance. For nobody will be productive with an empty stomach.

    One of the objectives of the NYSC says, “To inculcate discipline in Nigerian youths by instilling in them a tradition of industry at work.” But what we find in our orientation camps today are not in conformity with the afformentioned objective. They have been report of how sex and money have been giving in exchange for postings to better PPAs.

    Some corps members stay away from drillings and some don’t even show up in camps just because they have people on the inside. A scheme that is set up to inculcate discipline should be corruption free.
    The Federal government should do more in checkmating the activities of those in charge of orientation camps. We should not only pay lip service to inculcating discipline, we should walk the talk.

    Another objective states that, “the Nigerian youths are encouraged to eschew religious differences”. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be happening in our orientation camps.

    If NYSC can’t allow Muslim ladies to put on their full hijab then they should be allowed to wear sporting trousers that will cover them down to their ankles. Having them expose their kneels is far from being fair.
    God bless Nigeria.

    Abdulrahman Yahaya, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto

  • 2019: NYSC DG solicits army, police protection for corps members

    Maj.-Gen. Suleiman Kazaure, Director-General (D-G), NYSC, has solicited the protection of corps members by the Police Command and the 6 Division of the Nigerian Army in Rivers during the general forthcoming elections.

    Kazaure made the request during his separate courtesy visits to the heads of the two security agencies in Port Harcourt on Thursday.

    He commended the army and the Police Command in Rivers for the support they had been giving to the NYSC in the state.

    According to Kazaure, the corps members are national assets on national assignment and needed to be protected.

    ”As you know, the corps members will participate in the forthcoming election as ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    ”You know that we lost a corps member during the 2015 election in Rivers, so, I need your support for them to be well protected in carrying out that critical assignment,” he said.

    In his response, The Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr Usman Belel, assured the NYSC DG that it was mandatory for the police to protect lives and property.

    ”It is mandatory for the police to protect INEC materials and staff members, especially NYSC members. We will do everything possible to protect them in partnership with sister security agencies.

    ”So, I assure you that we will do everything within our reach to protect the young Nigerians as they embark on the 2019 electoral assignment,” he said.

    Belel sympathised with the NYSC for the death of its member while on national service in Rivers in 2015 and thanked the director general for the visit.

    Similarly, Maj.-Gen. Jamil Sarham, General Officer Commanding (GOC), 6 Division, Nigerian Army, Port Harcourt, told the NYSC boss that the army was ready to protect the corps members before, during and after the elections.

    Sarham stated that the division has launched Operation Egwu Eke III to flush out criminals, vendors of fake news and other people doing things inimical to national security.

    He assured the NYSC director general that the visit was a challenge for the army to take the protection of the corps members more seriously.

    ”We are going to live up to the expectations of every Nigerian in this regard,” he said.

    The GOC commended him for visiting the division and promised to do more for the NYSC in their areas of partnership. (NAN)

  • MAKING NYSC OPTIONAL

    As a little girl, attending a university to me seemed the greatest thing a living being could achieve, and whenever I set my eyes on people in white polo with the inscription ‘NYSC’ and green khaki trousers, my stomach churned out of excitement and yearnings, for when my turn to wear that would come.

    And that was because my mom made me believe that I had to wear that to be successful in life. Since then, I’d begun to see the youth corps members as some super beings on whose shoulders lie the restoration of our nation’s hope. I had designated them as the emblem of that popular nursery rhyme: “Leaders of tomorrow;” who had been offered sound education. I thought by the time my “future” and that of my contemporaries come, they would hand over the baton of “leadering” tomorrow to us. I was just a child.

    That anecdote is just to tell how much my childhood deluded me, because my expectations were betrayed.

    Alas! Growing up, and getting to understand the dynamics of our existence as a nation, and of course, having being admitted into the university, I realised that all I had had in my head were mere illusions. The reality of being a University graduate and an NYSC member is far from what I had always pictured.

    The Scheme, when it was established, according to decree No.24 of 22nd May 1973 was aimed at “proper encouragement and development of common ties among the youths of Nigeria for the promotion of national unity”.

    Apparently, the scheme hasn’t attained its goal even after 45 years of its establishment. Because tribalism, nepotism and religious intolerance remain serious issues in our country. This is where the restructuring should actually start from, the body should set her priorities right and work towards the laid down fundamental goal.

    Read Also: CURBING UNEMPLOYMENT WITH NYSC

    A very huge amount of money is reportedly spent annually on the scheme. But, pathetically, the ones on whom the money is spent every year end up “in need,” when they get to the labour market. Of what use therefore is a national “pocket-gulping” budget that yields nothing but an annual increase in the unemployed populace in the labour market? These are the people I thought would get successful immediately after NYSC.

    Besides, this scheme isn’t the end itself. It’s simply a means to the end. An “unreliable” one at that.

    It isn’t totally a waste of time as some of those who had been there say it’s fun. They get to know new places and cultures, and what comes after the “post-graduation expedition”? Oh yes, the very few lucky ones among them get retained at the end and the rest are back on the streets.

    Going through the exercise should not be made compulsory. We should be given the freedom to broaden our horizons as much as we want immediately after graduation.

    Scraping it totally might not seem a plausible idea to the body. However, graduates should be allowed to see it a choice rather than an obligation. As such, it should stop being a major prerequisite to our career development.

    There’s a lot to patriotism and serving our fatherland than the NYSC exercise.

    Maryam Abdulkareem, University of Ilorin.

  • CURBING UNEMPLOYMENT WITH NYSC

    When the Scheme was founded in the era of Gen. Yakubu Gowon, shortly after the 1967 Civil war which lasted three years, it was with the aim of promoting peace and unity among ethnic nationalities.

    Since, as commonly said, a society where there is no peace, there’s no achievement.

    On the other hand, however, the scheme has only done little in putting an end to tribal-based conflicts, as not a few inter-ethnic genocides have followed its establishment.

    Even a lot of Corpers of seek to be redeployed when they get posted to areas deplete of their kinsmen. They don’t feel safe being in another man’s land.

    About 300,000 graduates, according to Vanguard Newspaper, are mobilized every year by NYSC.

    It is common knowledge, however, that many of these graduates are half-baked and quacks. Many can hardly even speak or write correctly in English. Due to the indeficiency in our education system, many lack the industrial knowledge of their field of study.

    Yet, they spend a whole year in NYSC, teaching, some sitting indolently in Local governments, without any addition to their industrial skills. While those they that do are those who have ‘legs’ in certain big companies.

    Read Also: TIME TO REPLACE NYSC WITH N-POWER

    Meanwhile, when a graduate of Yoruba is posted to a hospital, or a graduate of Adult Education to a Stock Exchange firm, what kinds of manpower do you expect in the labour market?

    For a nation to develop, every youth must be readied for the realities of the economy, and how to strive in spite of it, rather than because of it. It is, therefore, the duty of the government to strengthen the cause of entrepreneurship in the NYSC.

    Even the allowances of Corpers— the N19,500— cannot take care of their needs, let alone help them in starting up a business of their own. The 70billion Naira yearly allocations to NYSC should be thus put to better use.

    Provide funds for prospective entrepreneurs among Corpers, and curb the menace of unemployment in Nigeria.

    BAMIDELE AYOBAMI LUKMAN, USMANU DANFODIYO UNIVERSITY, SOKOTO

  • TIME TO REPLACE NYSC WITH N-POWER

    My first condolence note goes to the families of; late Ms Ifedolapo, a first class graduate of Transport Management from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, who died due to negligence of NYSC medical team in Kano; nine members who drowned in river in Taraba State; and the seven kidnapped on their way to NYSC camp in the South-south few months ago.

    The National Youth Service Corps scheme founded by the Federal Government after the civil war to promote national unity has since then lost its mission and only subject fresh graduates today to an unnecessary year of hardship.

    Youths with bright future in their twenties are posted to different areas prone to violence, attacks and ethno-religious maltreatments while those from wealthy families like Former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, follow ‘back door’ to get their discharge or exemption certificates.

    While death may be defined as an inevitable natural calamity, despite the insufficient monthly stipend, a lot of corps members are posted to places where they will have to sponsor their accommodation from what cannot cover their feeding.

    From a survey I carried out, a corps member who chooses to take three good meals daily from his monthly stipend for seven days in Abuja and seventeen days in Kebbi will be left with nothing for transport to his Place of Personal Assignment not to talk of rent bill before other basic amenities.

    The N-power, an initiative of the Federal Government in 2016, gave unemployed graduates of higher institutions chance to work in their states and Local Governments of residence while earning a higher amount to make ends meet.

    The NYSC scheme, which is a compulsory service for a year is done by posting mobilized graduates to places for particular assignments, this however only promotes unemployment. A under-employment, though temporarily solved, results in shortage of skilled man-power.

    The graduates, after the year of service may spend the next ten years in search of job as every year, others will be posted to replace those who completed their service and most organizations, including some government-owned, prefer them because of their low level of maintenance and appreciation of low stipend.

    You cannot put a crown on a clown and expect a king. Apart from low stipend, accommodation problem, changes in weather, climate and environment, the corps members will have to cope when posted to places irrespective of their qualifications, skills and professions to wrong places for assignment.

    A graduate of Mass Communication with no classroom management training posted to Primary or Secondary School, a graduate of Biochemistry with no medical orientation posted to clinic laboratory, a graduate of Yoruba posted to the Northwest are common examples.

    I once witnessed a scenario during my industrial year as a graduate of Science Laboratory Technology from a Polytechnic, who had her industrial training from a chemical industry was posted to a state with no chemical industry. She served at a medical laboratory where her school and teachers were subjects of mockery every day.

    Unless the Federal Government will retain youths after their year of service, the N-power, is a better alternative to the hazardous NYSC. The refusal of some top government officials to let their children and the Honourable Minister of Communication to serve are clear evidences that NYSC has no significance.

    Habibu Bawa, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.

  • WANTED: A REFURBISHED NYSC

    As the literature goes, design is not making beauty; beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration and love.

    Whatever comes around, goes around. Maintaining a solid phalanx is the surviving tonics of diverse entities. The National Youth Service Corps, a brain-child of Gowon’s no-victor-no-vanguished lexicon, was thus doctored as an integration mechanism.

    Tailored to heal wounds sustained during the civil impasse that lasted for months, and wrecked incalculable loses; exposing the cleavages that ditched the Nigerian Federation. NYSC allows young graduate to be posted to locals other than their own, with a view to eschewing intolerance, and developing common ties among the Nigerian youths, and perhaps promote national unity and integration.

    Arguably, the programme could be said to have attained her climatic moments given the context in which the country has managed varying differences, crisis paving way for troubles, that emerged from differing ideas.

    A tiger does not shout its tigritude, it acts. Exposure to different cultures was believed to have healing powers that could forstall seeming violence eruption. However, for how long must feverish bird suffer in silence? 45 years after NYSC was set up, the cesspit of intolerance; religious, inequalities, fear of marginalisation, tribal and ethnic cleavages still permeate the sanctimonious embroidery of our giant of Africa. Killings like none before show no quirky abatement. In fact, corps members bear sizeable chunks of the malice that hooked the country like unnoticed worm.

    Paddling it further, as a result of the increase in available universities which hitherto led to a boom in the number of graduates yearly. Mouth-watering fund is often budgeted for the program. A total sum of eighty-three billion naira was earmark for the allowances of corps members in 2018.

    In the previous years, statistics in NYSC 2017 budget showed that apart from allowances, the NYSC spent ₦2,491,681,500 for kitting and ₦3,272,103,431 on meals for her 21 days camping; this massive spending does not in any valley commiserate a returns for the Nigerian people, rather an upkeeping of a programme whose lifespan is in a transition phase.

    Be it as it may, the present is weeping, the future is not happy, but to resign oneself to it is to be crippled fast. In the words of the Afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, “My people are scared of the air around them, they always have an excuse not to fight for freedom.” if we all fear to fight for righteous, who would define the future?

    The responsibility to rebrand the conduct of governmental businesses rest on our shoulders; to rethink an holistic approach towards businesses in government institutions and parastatals. It’s high time we remarked the vision, mission and structure of NYSC.

    The flowery fruit of life is procreation, politics smiles with numbers, the increase in higher institutions in the country has provided ground for deeper integration, accommodating students from the nooks and crannies of the country.

    Even though there has been a public uproar over the sustainability of the programme, I hold the belief that the programme be sustained, but the founding scope of NYSC be refurbished; a paradigm shift from national integration Mechanism to a manpower development programme— a model N-power, a social investment programme.

    Thus, this requires that emphasis on mandatory national service paved way for a voluntary service with a view to enhancing efficiency, transparency and an avenue for leadership development. Hence, young graduate, at his/her will, will have the liberty to enroll for the service. Thereby killing two bird with a stone; minimising costs and an enabling atmosphere for training and skill acquisition.

    On the same lane, prospective corps members will have to apply through the existing channel, sit for tests to test PCM fluency, accuracy and intelligence, including voluntary military service based on equpping them with the necessary tools for self-reliance in the post-service years.

    On benefits, every good turn deserves another. Every human endeavors require psychic energy. A ‘weldone’ accelerates the rate of work done. A system of incentives should be birthed with an upward increase of allowances to enable a Corps member, with the specialist and certified training and skills acquired, establish a fruitful post-service life, and encourage young graduates into taking voluntary national service.

    An ideal 21st century corps service with ease is everyone’s responsibility. Fetching from the intellectual spring of Barrack Obama, he posits that “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” As he said we are the change that we seek.

    Abiodun Jamiu, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.

  • RESTRUCTURING NYSC FOR A BETTER ECONOMY

    A tale was once recounted of a man, whom after working for many years, was refused retirement. He had grown old and already lost some teeth. His eyes were falling. He couldn’t stand anymore. His limbs were weak. He was ailing. But he was still being kept and managed at his duty post, despite that he had outlived his usefulness— that for which he had been employed.

    He was neither revitalized nor laid to rest early enough. Then, what became the fate of this man? He continued to suffer, and even caused more harm to himself and the company he worked for, till he eventually crumbled.

    This, assuredly, if could be likened to anything in Nigeria, is the quagmire the one-year mandatory National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) scheme is presently confronting.

    It is with no modicum of doubt that the national scheme is now nothing to write home about, and has become a far cry from what it was intended to achieve.

    Of recent vintage, there has been a clamour for it to be restructured or betterstill, scrapped. But while it is safe to conclude that the scheme is direly in need of an overhaul, it is also equally important we realize where exactly the expediency is: the process of the scheme, its policies, its framework, its participants or even the people helming its affairs.

    One of the objectives the NYSC scheme was designed to achieve is to foster the productivity of the youths, through its various opportunities like skill acquisition, entrepreneurship training, execution of community projects and doing something worthwhile for the social good it has availed young people. On the contrary, it seems more like a colossal tragedy to the nation’s economic development.

    The price of what the government is paying to sustain the scheme is far beyond what it should cost. It consumes a whole lot of our resources that would have been channeled into other development-like initiatives to boost the nation’s economy.

    It however remains an incontestable fact that the potentials of the youths, if harnessed well, can lead any nation to the highway of prosperity. It is also a great resource that must be channeled appropriately to yield sustainable impacts for the nation. But what we must realize is that, the scheme is not a major determinant of the productivity of the young people. Regardless of it, they will still be productive, and even more. To many, it is akin to an obstacle that has encumbered many of the personal goals they would have pursued.

    Truly, it is commendable that the basis on which the NYSC scheme was established on May 22, 1973 by the then Nigeria’s Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon was as a post civil war strategy to promote national integration, unity, cultural coexistence, patriotic engagement and as well to strengthen the common ties amongst the youths from different etho-religious backgrounds towards national development.

    I however agree that it also meant to instill the true sense of patriotism in them through service to their fatherland. However, the scheme is unarguably not the only way to exercise it. Our nationalists never passed through the scheme, yet they were of selfless service to the nation in various capacities.

    It has long lost its seam, and its vast benefits are not overarching anymore in all the spheres of our development. Still, it continues to cause more harm to itself by decadence, the young people through the various untold hardships they pass through, and even the nation by the proliferation of her resources which has, in corollary, spelt doom for the economy.

    In the bargain, the purpose the scheme has achieved is not all-encompassing, as a vast majority of the youths do not have the opportunity to enroll for it. Due to various multifarious circumstances, many do not have access to education, the hopes of many to further their studies to the tertiary level have been thwarted, many have ventured into various businesses and many even leave for greener pastures to pursue their career endeavours.

    As a matter of fact, many do not get to undergo the scheme, despite being graduates, either on the basis that they didn’t get to acquire their degrees while they were still under 30 years of age or their academic degree programmes do not even allow for it.

    From the foregoing, can we now extrapolate that the NYSC scheme has truly achieved its set objectives for the entirety of the youth population or for unity of the nation as a while? No, it has not. Not even by any stretch of imagination!

    In a nutshell, like most of our national initiatives, the scheme is fast decaying in its value and usefulness, hence the need for restructuring in a bid to adjust it to meet the contemporary trends. It is very necessary to note that the woes bedeviling the scheme is beyond its functional efficiency.

    Thus, in order to make it productive to Nigerian economy, the government should simply make it an utmost priority to put in place certain sustainability plans and strategies for the projects implemented by the corps members through the Community Development Service (CDS). It should devise structures to help them secure jobs after their national service year, and also provide ample opportunities for them to access seed grants to launch any entrepreneurial skill they must have learnt at the three-week orientation camp into operation.

    This will, within no province of doubt, go a very long way in making the youths not only eventually finding their service a worthwhile experience— not a waste of time as many regard it— but also put into good and maximum use the skills, training and knowledge they have gained during the national service, to advance their various life endeavors and contribute them immensely to create a better society.

    And in fact, more skill acquisition programs and capacity building trainings should be introduced into the scheme to enable corps members make the best out of it and make them explore their potentials more.

    Consequently, the NYSC scheme will very much be a viable and innovative platform, if the government can make it more inclusive or better still create its subsidiary to also accommodate young people who are not graduates of higher institutions, but are replete with potentials and have a meaningful quota to contribute towards nation building and socio-economic development.

    Yes, the clarion call is for all to obey! Just like that enervated old man, the scheme has also been refused to be reinvigorated or even laid to rest and given a befitting retirement. And it is only till we do either of these that we can begin to reap the abundant dividends of not only the scheme, but also the resources we have invested in it.

    Restructuring NYSC as springboard to the productivity of the Nigerian economy is actually no wishful thinking; we all have a pivotal role to play. An African proverb says “If one would not eat pounded yam for its sake, one can still eat it for the sake of the soup that goes with it.”

    Agbaje Ayomide, University of Ilorin.