Against the National Youth Suffering Corps

I look at the plan by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to swindle Nigerian youths by making prospective coppers pay N4,000 to access call-up letters, and I wonder what kind of country we are running. It is as if every sector of government is operating independently of the others – what some people have […]

I look at the plan by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to swindle Nigerian youths by making prospective coppers pay N4,000 to access call-up letters, and I wonder what kind of country we are running. It is as if every sector of government is operating independently of the others – what some people have described as government by auto-pilot. The impression is given that the falcon can no longer hear the falconer and is therefore at liberty to navigate whichever way it likes.
It has become commonplace for those in government to dream up hare-brained schemes to defraud the public under various guises. The Ministry of Interior did it with the ill-fated immigration recruitment which led to the death of hundreds of Nigerians. It was a neatly planned scam to collect application fees from over 600,000 youths competing for less that 5,000 openings through a third party Limited Liability Company. Before that, the Federal Road Safety Corps had suddenly come up with a new set of licence plates and vehicle particulars which would render the old ones obsolete even before their expiration dates. For a princely sum, motorists were expected to comply with the new requirements as if we are in a state of anomie.
A great deal of the time when government officials dream up new schemes, it is to defraud the public, as if someone somewhere is asking himself: “what can I do to blackmail these people into subscribing to my scam?” Innovation is meant to make life easier for the people. It is supposed to be an easier way of doing old things. Most times, at least in other parts of the world, it comes cheaper. Not in Nigeria.
If the NYSC directorate has found a digital way of making call-up easier, one would have thought that the plan would be incorporated into their overall strategy and budget. But no one wants to bother about budgets whose expenditure can be audited. The new trick is to reach an understanding with an external ‘consultant’, pass on the arbitrary bill to the public and share the proceeds with the ‘consultant’ in a sweetheart deal that is often as opaque as iron curtain.
Now what makes the NYSC scam intolerable is that it is directed against the youth and their parents. Believe it or not, most parents barely manage to see their children through the university or polytechnic. In fact they did so with the help of uncles and sundry well-wishers. When their children graduate, they heave a great sigh of relief. There are no jobs, but at least they have fulfilled all righteousness by seeing their kids through tertiary education. Now they are being ambushed as their wards breast the tape of graduation. They are being told to pay before their children can be allowed to serve their fatherland through the NYSC scheme.
We have short-changed our youth so much in the last couple of decades. No longer does a university degree guarantee a meal ticket. In fact, it is the beginning of suffering. Some graduates call it “Now Your Suffering Continues”. In our days, we had breakfast for 10 kobo, lunch for 20 kobo and supper for 20 kobo. If you had 50 kobo, you were guaranteed a full day’s meal. On Sundays we had jollof rice and ice cream for lunch. Tea/coffee was free for those who could not rustle up 10 kobo in the morning. We look back with nostalgia and gratitude at those days because Nigeria spent good money to educate us. What do the present generation of graduates have by comparison? And we expect them to be patriotic!
The new scam is the absolute limit. It is the equivalent of adding insult to injury. We are, by this new policy, asking our youths to bribe us to serve their fatherland. The explanation of the national directorate of NYSC is bunkum. Do those people ever credit Nigerians with intelligence? If they are convinced that Nigeria should cancel the NYSC scheme, they should say so. Most of the prospective croppers would celebrate a cancellation of the scheme because the earlier they hit the road in search of non-existent jobs the better. If government cannot fund NYSC then it is time to call it a day. Just scrap it. To attempt defrauding corps members through a digital scam is totally unacceptable.
It is an insult on the generality of Nigerians for the NYSC directorate to cook up excuses for the extortionist scheme. The NYSC is funded by the federal government, just like the police and the armed forces. If we cannot maintain a scheme designed to bring our youths together towards forging national cohesion, then let’s not penalise the youths for committing the crime of graduating from tertiary institutions.
Back to Fela for the appropriate parallel in his repertoire. The song is titled “Overtake don overtake Overtake (ODOO)”. Fela tells the story of a young man who planned to buy a fan to make his room more comfortable. He saved towards the purchase, determined to make up the cost of N75. Each time his savings neared the target, government would add N10 more. It was called structural adjustment. Eventually the cost of the fan hit N200. The man was still bent on saving to acquire it. He saved everywhere: “inside cupboard, under pillow, under cooking pot, inside socks, under carpet …” Just when he made up the sum, government announced the second-tier monetary policy which further devalued the naira. The fan was now priced at N700; “Everything come tear to pieces, everything come expensive, even water become expensive…” In exasperation, Fela signalled his second bassist to relieve the gloom — “second bass jare…”
Just like in Fela’s story, most parents look forward to the day their children would graduate, finish national service and get a job to help the family. Now what NYSC is telling them is that graduation is just the first hurdle; there is a price to pay for graduating. The parents have to pay N4,000 before their children can serve Nigeria.
The National Assembly should save us from this scandalous attempt to extort money from the moneyless, otherwise, as Fela would put it, “Overtake may eventually overtake Overtake”.