Tag: Restructuring NYSC

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.

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.

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

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.

Following recent various scandals trailing public officers with respect to the compulsory one-year National Youth Corps Service ( NYSC ), there have been divergent views on whether the Scheme is indeed still necessary.

While some have argued that NYSC is better scrapped, others hold the view that the Scheme could rather be put into much more beneficial use, and made to serve as a means of youth empowerment and development to the nation, and it’s failing economy. It is widely agreed, nevertheless, that the Scheme needs restructuring.

Based on this divergent views, Students With Pen, a civil society organization, has sought the views of both serving corps members and prospective corpers on how NYSC could best be restructured, via a campaign titled #RstructuringNYSC— in partnership with The Nation Newspaper.