Does NYSC still have relevance?

By: Sam Ibok

Sam Ibok

It is about that time of the year again when fresh graduates nationwide begin another phase of struggle after passing through stress to get higher certificates. They are preparing to be mobilised for the mandatory National Youth Service. In the next couple of weeks, the graduates will be in different camps of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

Now, I am not against the scheme as the headline of this article may suggest. I just feel that the programme is losing its relevance and perhaps living on borrowed time. I have my reasons for holding this opinion.

The average Nigerian student goes to school and spends, at least, four years – that is if he is not an engineering, law or medical student who should complete his studies between 5 – 7 years. But in the academic years, periods of lecturers’ strike and their non-teaching counterparts are calculated and factored, which can make a four-year course to take five or six years for completion.

After spending at least five years, one graduates from school with its attendant stress, struggle and all other forms suffering. Then, he is mobilised for another round of stress for a year in the service of the nation. By then, a graduate would be reaching an age that employers don’t like?

In years past, NYSC was seen as a scheme that fostered unity and encourage understanding among tribes that make up Nigeria. It also allowed interaction and union (in the form of marriage) of people who never had history of meeting. It was designed to make the youths contribute to development of the nation.

The sad reality of it is that, these days, no one believes in the values listed above. First, a fresh graduate thinks of how he can fit in to the society quick enough to pay back his parents’ investments on him throughout his school days. He has siblings that depend on him for various domestic help but then, the nation is saying he should go to a far-flung community to serve.

What is the essence of rendering a service to the nation? Why should youths give their time to serve a nation that cannot guarantee give them shelter and ensure their safety and future? Has anyone ever wondered why we have square pegs in round holes in various organisations?

Many of our graduates fresh from school with little or no working experience are thrust on various sectors – schools, banks and local government councils among other – during their service year. Now you have a graduate of engineering posted to a bank as a cashier, what happens? In that one year, he forgets most of his engineering mathematics and studies banking principles to fit into his new job.

He gets used to banking and is then offered a full time job there on completion of his service. Because he realises that getting jobs in the country is harder than fetching water with a sieve, he decides to take the offer and thus ends up stuck in that sector for a long while. The same goes with other disciplines and eventually, the trend goes on and on.

Given the spate of violence being reported each day in the country and with little protection for Corps members, they will be targets of violent criminals who see them as strangers and easy prey. Government has no plan for their safety; when bad things happen and Corps members are killed, we start hearing empty threats and promises. But it is the parents that will lose in the end.

Why then should anyone serve? Service to a nation that does not have our interests at heart is effort in futility. These days, it is commonplace to see graduates influencing their postings to preferable states because they value their lives and desire something profitable.

Since the original reasons for creating NYSC have proven to be of no use today, can people be allowed to move on with their lives after graduation? Can they be allowed to pursue their dreams and desires rather than being sent to a prison called NYSC camps? Can they serve their nation with their talents? Questions will continue to be asked and debates will rage on until Nigeria realises that it has held back and derailed many youths through this scheme. To the prospective Corps members, may God be with you.