NYSC Scheme And National Unity

NYSC Scheme And National Unity Mon, 29/08/2011 - 10:36pm The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme was established to ensure national consciousness, youth leadership skills for nation building, meaningful interactions and enduring relationships as well as national integration and unity among the various ethnic groups in Nigeria Although the programme, arguably, has not failed to achieve over the decades, nonetheless, these are definitely not the best of times for the current management and staff of the 38-year-old NYSC, introduced by the Gen. Yakubu Gowon military administration in the aftermath of the unfortunate civil war that raged between 1966 and 1970. The current pressure on the scheme is informed by the increasing insecurity of lives of its corps members due to killings, bomb attacks and kidnappings in certain volatile states in parts of the conutry, including Borno, Jigawa, Taraba, Imo, Kaduna, Kano, Plateau and Bauchi to which graduate youths are being posted to participate in the one-year mandatory national service. There have been discordant calls on the appropriate authorities and prominent stakeholders, to either phase out or restructure the programme, vis-a- vis the guidelines for posting, welfare package, issues of security of lives as well as the deployment of corps members to places of primary assignment after mobilisation at the orientation camps, among others. Granted, that the federal government consequently has set up an investigative panel on the post-election violence, headed by Sheikh Ahmed Lemu to probe series of violent attacks that dotted the landscape at the time, and make recommendations for possible implementation, conflicting pronouncements, emanating from the leadership of NYSC at its national headquarters in Abuja, over guidelines on redeployment of corps members to preferred states are not helping matters in respect of re-assuring them and their parents or guardians that the nation has their interest at heart. An earlier memo from the office of the NYSC director-general, Brig.-Gen. Maharazu Tsiga, “In the light of the security uncertainty in Bauchi State, the NYSC management has considered it fit to waive all due process to expedite action on relocation” Yet, on realising that scores of serving and prospective corps members have kept seeking re-deployment to other states, the NYSC again, made a U-turn on the previous directive, saying it appeared to have encouraged corps members from all states of the federation, including the FCT, to besiege the national headquarters seeking relocation “for the flimsiest of reasons” The director-general thus, ostensibly stated in another memo: “All prospective corps members must proceed to their respective camps immediately. Relocation matters will be handled through the established procedure from their states of deployment:’ While one readily agrees with the leadership of the NYSC, that allowing corps members to serve in their states of origin will be against the NYSC code, the officials still need to realise the fact that they may be wrong in describing reasons advanced by concerned corps members seeking re-deployment as “flimsiest”. Human lives are precious, and once lost, they are simply irreplaceable! Perhaps we all need to ask ourselves this pointed question: Which rational parent or guardian will carelessly allow their sons or daughters in whom they have invested so much from birth, sheepishly march into the den by faceless terrorists to snuff life out of them in seconds while serving Nigeria outside their states of origin? To further impress it on the government that things are really falling apart with the scheme of recent, at least security-wise, the apparent lack of confidence in the capability of the state security apparatus has compelled the authorities of the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), in Bomo State, following alleged threat letters from the Boko Haram sect, to shut down the institution indefinitely, while many non-natives are leaving the troubled state in droves for dear lives. Government, therefore, needs to take urgent proactive measures to resolve the Boko Haram wahala before it gets out of the hand. Most politicians with inordinate ambitions seeking political power at all costs for their selfish ends but masquerading as patriotic leaders must be told bluntly to stop their age-long hide-and-seek disruptive tendencies and outright hypocrisy in the form of inciting statements and disposition which surreptitiously fuel trouble across the land. The NYSC national headquarters, for now, should give express approval to requests of many corps members seeking re-posting to other states considered “safe”. These officials should stop playing chess with the lives of the nation’s youth. Continuing doing this will only encourage the generality of Nigerians to lose interest in the NYSC scheme completely. O.Kayode is CEO, Wordkraft Communications Limited Lagos