My NYSC Experience
Sa'ad Abubakar Zongre
20 May 2011
I often look back to my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) year that lasted from May 2001 to May 2002 as one of the most exciting, challenging, demanding and productive periods of my life so far. Fresh from the largely theoretical confines of the university (ABU, Zaria) and fully loaded with a lot of life-changing or revolutionary ideas commonly inherent in a graduate of an academic discipline in the arts or social sciences, found the service year quite eventful and action-packed from the orientation of 3 weeks, to place of primary assignment/host community and up to the passing-out formalities. It was a great and priceless experience that I cherish till date.
From this, some may easily conclude that I was so lucky to have been posted to a place where I found people that I knew or shared the same communal, religious or ethnic background with and thus, made life wholly cosy for me. In fact, the reverse is the case. I was posted to Akwa Ibom state in the oil-rich but restless Niger-Delta (the first time I entered the southern part of this country) and at the end of the orientation at Nsi-Atai town, I was subsequently posted to one of the most remotest parts of the state (Obio-Edienne Community Secondary School in Obio-Edienne village, Ikono LGA) where I did my primary assignment as a teacher. As a matter of fact, I happened to be the first "Hausa/Fulani" or Muslim to have lived in the village. The news of the strange presence of a certain "Abubakar" (the only name among my 3 names that the natives found it easier to pronounce) spread like wild fire within the village and even to neighbouring villages and I understandably, became an object of both curiosity and suspicion to my students, some of the permanent teachers and the generality of the villagers. Whenever I am observing the noon or mid-afternoon prayers in the school premises, it is common to see students (who were yet to go home after school hours or waiting for evening lessons) to mount an informal "guard of honour" behind me while watching all the stages of the prayer with maximum concentration, excitement and deep-seated curiosity. At the end of the prayer, I made it a point of duty to have a mini-interactive session with those itching to ask me one or two questions on the prayer, Muslims and Islam in general as well as Northern Nigeria.
In so doing, I was able to enlighten a lot of them (at times, even the permanent teachers used to meet me in private to ask similar questions) on the true meaning of Islam, the nature of Muslims and the multi-religious and tribal composition of northern Nigeria that were hitherto unknown or misunderstood by them. And by the time I took over as the chief coach of the school's football team (I played for my secondary school, university, NYSC orientation camp platoon and the Ikot-Ekpene regional NYSC football teams at different times) and introduced several effective training schedules that helped the team to defeat rival football teams, in addition to my active participation in the highly successful bi-weekly environmental sanitation exercise that was initiated by a colleague (Chinedu Okafor) as part of our Community Development (CD) project , I was eventually and fully "adopted" as a worthy "son of the soil", which paved the way for my full integration into the community as an agent of positive change.
One of the core values of the NYSC scheme is to strengthen a youth corps member's capacity for a critical and sound value judgment on all issues or factors germane to the discharge of his/her primary assignment and interaction with members of his/her host community. As a change agent, his/her service year program is not limited to excellent discharge of primary assignment only but to active involvement in additional change-oriented activities at communal and institutional levels as enshrined in the concept of CD projects.
Therefore, the mandatory orientation program was essentially designed to prepare the prospective youth corps member for the challenges posed to him/her by the next 11 months of the service year through instilling in him/her, the culture of discipline, endurance, tolerance, courage, hard work, creativity, productivity and patriotism under a regimental setting.
Although post-election violence is mostly spontaneous in nature, the recent killings, physical assaults and looting or destruction of properties of youth corps members in about 3 or so states in northern Nigeria (which is totally condemnable and inexcusable) as part of the violent reactions that trailed the release of results of the April 16th, 2011 presidential election, were sad developments that exposed the existence of a wide gap between youth corps members (not limited to the affected states only) and members of their respective host communities. It is noticeable nowadays, how some youth corps members tend to look down on the members of their host communities as inferior to their own native communities.
Also, in contrast to the principle of Community Development (CD) project of the NYSC, some youth corps members adopt a life of exclusion during their respective service years.
Their understanding of the service year is in 2 words; place of primary assignment and "corpers' lodge" or residence.
As a one-time youth corps member my heart bleeds whenever any harm is visited on a youth corps member. My bleeding heart goes out to the parents and entire family members of these new set of martyrs for the Nigerian state. The 5 million naira compensation package been proposed by the Federal Government (FG) for the family of each of the slain youth corps members during the post presidential election violence is really a welcome development. At least, this shows that the country appreciates and honours the supreme sacrifice that each of them had made for the good of the Nigerian state.
* Zongre wrote from Yerima Bappa Sanda Road, Jalingo
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