In 1973, the former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, in his desire to further achieve national reintegration after the gruesome 30 months civil war, came up with the National Youth Service Corps scheme. The NYSC scheme was a part of that administration’s post-war policy of reconstruction, rehabilitation, and reconciliation that was badly needed then to address the question of war-battered Nigeria. Participation in the one-year national service in states other than those of the participants was made compulsory for Nigerian graduates below 30 years of age.
This laudable scheme has, among other things, achieved national development and integration, cultural cross-fertilization, breaking of tribal barriers, engendering of patriotism, possible employment outside states of origin, marriage among tribes and self-development.
The scheme has substantially achieved its aims of national integration and consciousness through contributions in different areas of our national life where the youths are deployed, namely banking, industry, commerce, agriculture, engineering, construction, education, petroleum sector and general services.
Many youth corps members in their various places of primary assignment have acquitted themselves creditably going by their achievements or exploits leading, at times, to receipt of state and national awards. Many youth corps members have constructed culverts and provided other infrastructure that serve their host communities usefully; NYSC farms contribute to solving the food needs of Nigeria; their roles in education in their host states in form of extramural classes augment acute shortage of teachers, and their contributions to intellectual competitions like debate and quiz are addressing the declining state of education in the country. Other sectors blessed with contributions of youth corps members include civil works, petroleum sector, aviation, maritime, communication, social enlightenment and awareness programmes, manufacturing and service sectors.
The objectives of the scheme have significantly been achieved. With threats to the security of corps members in their diverse places of primary assignments, it is doubtful the extent to which the scheme will be seen to be fully realizing its avowed aims. The general insecurity in the country occasioned by Boko Haram and kidnapping are adversely affecting corps members and the scheme.
The kidnapping in Rivers State of five female youth corps members in their lodge was widely condemned . As fallout of the abduction incident, the kidnappers reportedly stole their generating sets, computers, handsets and other valuables.
Not long after this ugly incident, another set of five corps members – four males and one female – were reportedly kidnapped again, still in Rivers State, with a ransom of N100 million placed on their heads. These incidents have added to the insecurity our NYSC members are exposed to all over the country. Corps members have been killed in communal skirmishes as was reported sometime in Jos, where three corps members were mindlessly killed. A female corps member was reported to have been raped to death in a state in the North. Many have died in road accidents, drowned in the course of duty and through other avoidable and painful circumstances. These threaten the continued relevance of the scheme.
Cases of the ten kidnapped NYSC members, in Rivers State, amounted to stretching the issue of abduction too far. Kidnapping which started as a localized criminality in the Niger Delta regions as a way of expressing protests over oil pollution, environmental degradation and general neglect and lack of development in that area, has resulted in kidnapping for ransom Nobody ever imagined that corps members would ever be a target.
Insecurity of youth corps members heightened the fears expressed by parents over the decisions by INEC to use corps members in the voters’ registration exercises and possible participation in the conduct of the 2011 general elections. Their fears were informed by the increasing cases of bomb blasts and earlier cases of killing of electoral officials and burning of INEC offices and voting centres in some states.
Regrettably, the fears of these parents were justified judging by the many lives of corps members lost in election bombings in Suleja, Maiduguri, and other areas in the North. The climax of this loss of lives of corps members was the post elections violence in Kaduna, Bauchi, Niger, Nassarawa, Kano, and many other northern states which resulted in the killing of corps members.
National Youth Service Corps members, deserve to be well-secured. They serve while depending on stipends that have been badly eroded by inflation; they serve in very hostile social environments and climatic conditions that even threaten their lives; they have had their lodges burgled and properties stolen. Unemployment after service is still a parting gift to citizens who have served their country meritoriously while living on the said stipends that do not take them home. They cannot serve the nation with both their sweat and their blood, and now their lives. Their security, wherever they may be in their various duty posts, must engage the attention of government and relevant agencies.
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