The NYSC is a strategy established by the authorities of Nigeria which involves instilling university graduates into the labour market for a compulsory one twelvemonth service to the state except in particular instances were persons are exempted. The full significance of the NYSC is National Youth Service Corps.
THE National Youth Service Corps ( NYSC ) strategy will be 40 old ages old in 2013. And still after about four decennaries many still think it is clip the programme was scrapped. This may surprise and dismay all those persons who strongly believe and see the strategy as a worthwhile mechanism for the publicity of national assimilation and integrity. Over the past four decennaries. there have been many statements which have been taken up by many citizens including assorted good known and established bookmans. Arguments which have ever been reversible. some back uping the continued being of the programme. the others take a breathing down the cervixs of the governments for its being. Few of the really many points discussed over the old ages will be mentioned in this chapter.
The NYSC Programme Some might happen it difficult to state. but the many others who don’t acknowledge the utility of the strategy will state that the aristocracy of the purposes and intents for puting up the strategy seem today. in their position. laughably over-romanticised.
The talk about all those sentiments of how the strategy was intended to further and ease national integrity will non be rehashed. The decision is that Nigerians who support the continuance of the strategy and would non hold it scrapped come in four different classs:
- One. starry-eyed Nigerians who are unable to speculate that the strategy is due for trashing or. in the option. due for a comprehensive and entire inspection and repair ;
- Two. Nigerians who still believe that such tokenistic programmes are ineluctable for advancing the of all time elusive national integrity ;
- Three. province governors and their functionaries who. alternatively of making employment for young persons in their provinces. would instead hold the inexpensive alumnus labour the strategy provides yearly ;
- Four. NYSC functionaries and their contractors for whom the strategy is their ain agencies of roll uping rough wealth and therefore harbor a mortal fright of losing their avenues for province robbery.
Some of them have even accused anyone who of all time raised the issue of trashing the strategy as being insurgent. disloyal and such other names that our military dictators characteristically employed to set their ‘enemies’ out of circulation.
The programme is in desperate demand of reform for it to wholly vouch for each corps member. a safe. healthy. enabling/fulfilling environment. This of all other grounds is the most underlined in the calls for the scraping. The corps members are exposed to all sorts of dangers and hazards. The corps members might unwittingly take up adjustment in a house or compound owned by unsafe and wicked people. sometimes they find themselves posted in hostile environments. The insecurity came to the full into visible radiation after the post-election force against the corps members. largely those shacking in the North. There were instances where even after seeking safety in a constabulary station. the corps members still couldn’t escape their gruesome and really prematurely deceases.
The programme now offers a fertile land for colza. harlotry. and slaying. On November 3. 2009. two female corps members were raped in Kano. The unfortunate couple was raped at gunpoint to a province of semi consciousness by a pack of 14 immature work forces at their topographic point of primary assignment in Fagge country of Kano State.
One of them is a indigen of Lagos State while the other victim hails from Oyo State. The barbarous assault. we were told. took topographic point at the place of the female corps members. which was situated at the official ‘Corpers lodge’ of Adamu Vice Secondary School. in Fagge. This Lodge is located within a walking distance from the secretariat of the Fagge Local Government Council and of a similar distance from the Fagge Divisional Police Station in the bosom of the province capital. This says a batch about the tallness of insecurity in the state and relates with the national craze about the permeant insecurity for people populating in many Northern provinces where the Boko Haram terrorist act has become an intractable threat to all.
It is non intelligence that the quality of intervention which corps members experience in the cantonments are nil short of flooring. There is an acute deficit of H2O supply at the cantonment while the pit lavatories at the cantonment are in bad provinces. coercing about most of the corps members. NYSC employees and others to reply the call of nature in nearby shrubs. Some instructors in schools besides express concern over their usage as NYSC cantonments. as this disrupts the school calendar with the students sent on forced vacations.
Some corps members lament that the province authorities and NYSC functionaries were handling their well-being with uninterested levity. One of them quoted in an interview said: “You can see the sort of environment they have dumped us. In a civilized state. I don’t believe a dairy husbandman can utilize this topographic point for his animate beings. The attitude of the authorization compelled some of our co-workers to redeploy to other provinces. Those who knew of the conditions here beforehand do decline to come at all if posted here. The state of affairs here. my brother. is really awful. I ne’er knew that in malice of the oil money they claim they are sharing to province authoritiess. some provinces are still backward like this” .
The programme has been said to be the hallmark of corruptness. Narratives about lasting young person corps members who ne’er pass out and that of corpers popularly called ‘ghost corpers’ who are ne’er seen but ever have their names signed are normally replied by suspirations of disapproval. Embezzlement. nepotism. favoritism etc are now portion and package of the strategy.
Babatunde Olanrewaju wrote “ the federal authorities is wholly unsighted. selfish and corrupt ; all they care for is what their bank histories read after each National Youth Service Corp ( NYSC ) programme is completed. That is the ground they won’t of all time scrap NYSC. Just take a trip to any province central office. I can wager you that every twenty-four hours is Christmas in at that place. you need to see how they portion the booties which would hold been made available to corps members during orientation programme. Make you see the autos the NYSC functionaries drive. Many of them have up to six expensive nomadic phones. So why on Earth would they desire NYSC scrapped? ’’ . The NYSC cantonment life. as everyone knows. is merely snake pit for the corps member. owing mostly to corruptness by NYSC functionaries.
For non merely are the corps members camped. in most instances. under cold conditions – that is. with small or no basic installations as potable H2O. good kits and adjustment. etc – they are served nutrient which. in nice climates. should non even be served captives. Again. while the corps members are supposed to populate in their host communities for a twelvemonth. in world. less than 30 per cent of those mobilised really serve the state: the remainder return to their place provinces. merely returning to the local authorities of service during the quarterly showing exercising. The Area Inspectors get 50 per cent or more of their monthly allowances for giving them this ‘ patriotic’ screen up. Indeed. the NYSC Area Inspectors and Zonal Inspectors live like male monarchs. The NYSC board of directors has done nil concrete to control this unease. because as the corps members say ‘‘it is staffed largely by criminals and autocrats everlastingly dazzled by naira notes’’
If the authorities still thinks the strategy is functioning a serious intent in footings of giving a twelvemonth of gloss of employment before they are thrust into the world of the Nigerian labor market where the ratio of available labor to willing employers is drearily low. so it needs a reconsideration. Year in twelvemonth out. most corps members do non acquire a topographic point to function. They are posted to topographic points where their services are either non required. or can non be paid for.
So. they wander around looking for any topographic point where they can be accommodated. In instances like this. the NYSC sends them to province ministries which corps members themselves have dubbed “Ministry of No Work. ” They merely loiter about and wait for the twelvemonth to base on balls by. In short. the authorities that forces them to function the state for a whole twelvemonth fails to supply any existent chance or challenge for these set of young person. Under this there is besides the instance of corpers who are under-employed in visible radiation of their making and the occupations given to them in topographic points of their primary assignments. An illustration is where a first category jurisprudence pupil is turned into a mere errand male child by his employers.
If the strategy means good plenty to acquire them trained. particularly in these times when the few employers are everlastingly inquiring for old ages of experience. so the authorities should put more than lip service in developing the young person sent for compulsory service. It is of import to develop young persons to love their state and be willing to function her all the clip but nationalism or cultural integrating can ne’er be forced on anybody. Loving Nigeria and the assorted peoples it is blessed with. can ne’er be imposed on anybody’s mind. To function Nigeria should non be by force or infliction or else it loses intending.
