It is time to rethink the NYSC. Half a century on, and NYSC still pays corpers the same ludicrous bicycle allowance
Half a century on, and NYSC still pays corpers the same ludicrous bicycle allowance to add to the ridiculous and insulting stipend given to university graduates to go spend 12 months of their lives in various parts of the country, deliberately chosen as far away from their home/school/state as possible.Today though, the scheme has an added deadly dimension.” – Mikky Attah, in ‘Their Suffering Must End Now( on NYSC)’.
I have written, ad nauseam, about the National Youth Service (NYSC) but God knows I have literally forgotten all about the scheme and its many problems until this past Sunday, when as usual, I read that racy and very interesting columnist of The Nation on Sunday, Mikky Attah, writing on the topic: ‘Their Suffering Must End Now( on NYSC)’. Whoever missed it should please Google and read it to get a better understanding of this piece which is my article of 10 July, 2011 on these pages. I am sure it should still be germane in resolving its many problems should government elect not to cancel a scheme that has, in essence, become almost unrecognizable, but for the uniform.
Again on the NYSC
“The government has been completely remiss concerning the NYSC probably because children of the high and mighty have not fallen victims of its many vicissitudes. Matters have come to a head regarding the scheme that one must, willy nilly, return to it since its continuation, or otherwise, has again come to the centre stage of national discourse, only that this time around, it has assumed a life of its own with Corps members who represent the very face of western education which the nation’s latest nemesis, Boko Haram, detests to high heavens. I personally feel sorry for the overwhelmed federal government because, Boko Haram driven as it is by religion, nobody can say with any measure of certainty that some security personnel are not fully involved in it. After all, Egyptian President Anwar Sadam was shot dead 6, October, 1981 by a serving Egyptian soldier. Suggestions, including, but not limited to a‘class action’ by parents of would-be corpers against their posting up North, have been made. I have suggested, however, that rather than resort to the long-winding legal route, affected parents should simply refuse their children’s posting to any of the volatile states up there. As things stand today, parents in both the north central and southern states should refuse their children going to those states because, apart from Boko Haram, the federal government has proved totally incapable of guaranteeing the lives of these embattled young people.
I summarise below, my article- NYSC: Matters Arising – of 22 November, 2009 on the need to re-structure the programme: ‘ Without a doubt, Mr Abdulwahab Obomeile, NYSC Director of Publicity, must by now be congratulating himself for what he must consider a great favour done his employers with his article: The NYSC, Security And Death of Corps Members’, published in The Nation of Friday,13 November, 2009. Paradoxically, however, he ended up practically killing off the programme which, to most discerning observers, has become nothing more than a source of cheap labour for some states in the federation, especially in the North. Since the wicked murder of some Corps members during the Jos riots of November 2008, an argument has arisen as to the reasonableness, or otherwise, of continuing the scheme. Indeed, in the aftermath of those mindless killings, I called for what I described as a ‘vigorous debate’ on the way forward for the NYSC.
In my view, it was to be either a complete scrapping or at worst, a total re-molding in ways that will take cognisance of our current precarious circumstances-a horrible national road network, vehicles in worse condition than the roads, marauding armed gangs and kidnappers, horrible, toll collecting and trigger happy policemen, ethnic/ religious crises waiting to explode in a moment etc, all of which have combined to turn an otherwise excellent idea on its head.
Talking of an excellent idea, the NYSC was certainly one at inception. All manner of arguments have been proffered for its continuation but the one by one Olaoluwa Richards in an article in the DAILY TRUST of 18 November, 2009 must rank as the most juvenile. Amongst other things, he wrote: ‘Accident is a daily occurrence on our roads. Has anybody asked for the scrapping of the ministries of works and transportation?’
Apparently, it has not occurred to Richards, and all who think like him, that but for this compulsory one year programme, any of these Nigerians might just not have been in Jos as at the time they were needlessly killed. From that, Richards leapt to an obvious lie: arrogating to the NYSC something everybody knows is no longer in-existence in this country today. Hear him: ‘…the priceless understanding generated by this cross-cultural interface has served to greatly reduce the tribal lacunae that in the past created undue mistrust and suspicion among Nigerians.’
What balderdash? If Richards ever cares to know, the truth is that Corps members are too busy praying daily that no ethno- religious crisis erupts where they are serving than to remember anything about reducing intra-ethnic problems in Nigeria.
However, in another article in The Nation of 17 May, 2009, devoted mostly to a critique of the critics of the programme, for instance, Professor Segun Osinowo who lost a nephew to the crisis, Abhuere, a director with the NYSC, enumerated some of the achievements of the programme in its 36 years, concluding that in spite of the pains , we must not throw the baby away with the bath water’.
So what to do?
In my view, government cannot continue to pretend that there is nothing wrong with the programme. The scheme has chalked up impressive achievements, no doubt, but those are now obviously in the past as abuses, especially by states up North, have continued un-checked, example being the allegation that Northern female Corps members are hardly permitted to be posted to the South. The problems confronting the NYSC today are humongous and not much is being done to ameliorate things. Additional to infrastructural deficiencies are poor remuneration of corps embers in the face of a ballooning cost of living, insecurity and the fact that many of them get turned back from their primary postings only to roam the streets, carrying about letters of rejection. On top of these, only very few of them get retained at the end of their service year. However, while it was quite justifiable to call for the cancellation of the programme in the heat of the Jos murders, it is now my considered opinion that the time has come for government and the critical stakeholders to put heads together and jointly interrogate the various issues which an increasingly polarized and economically humbled country has brought on the programme, in addition to its own systemic weaknesses. This should enable government restructure and strengthen the scheme appropriately.
Since that article was written almost two years ago, a national election has accounted for the blood of many Corps members: in Minna, Niger state, 50 of its members barely escaped being roasted; in Osun State, a monarch allegedly defiled his throne on top of an unwilling female member while 5 of them were rescued from kidnappers in Rivers State after two grueling weeks.
For parents of corpers posted to volatile states in the North, it is my considered opinion that the fear of the ubiquitous Boko Haram should be the beginning of wisdom , while in the South, the ubiquitous kidnapper is a present danger any minute of the day”.
It is time to rethink the NYSC.
