Wither NYSC

The underlying objective of the National Youth Service Corp scheme was to develop and foster national unity and encourage the development of common ties among young Nigerians. The Management of the NYSC has announced the indefinite postponement of the 2016 Batch ‘A’ Stream II orientation programme including Adamawa, Borno and Yobe in stream I, which […]

The underlying objective of the National Youth Service Corp scheme was to develop and foster national unity and encourage the development of common ties among young Nigerians. The Management of the NYSC has announced the indefinite postponement of the 2016 Batch ‘A’ Stream II orientation programme including Adamawa, Borno and Yobe in stream I, which was earlier billed to start on Saturday due to logistics reasons.
It would be recalled that the Board had earlier postponed the orientation course from March 30 to April 30, owing to logistics problems, only to further reveal its lack of funds. However, in another statement released before now, NYSC commended government’s efforts for wading into its financial problems by releasing funds for the 2016 Batch ’A’ stream II orientation course, adding that the orientation will go on as planned.
Now, one may wonder why the fantastically u-turn by postponing the orientation? Truth be told, it’s all about paucity of funds not logistics as the NYSC board has made Nigerians to believe. These hiccups of lack of fund have been there over the years which have completely cancelled out the usefulness of the scheme. The call to scrap the service has never been louder as young Nigerians and stakeholders question the relevance of the national scheme.
This issue of scrapping the scheme was on the air for sometimes now, until the FG came out to say the scheme will continue. But the questions many asked, can the FG afford to sustain this scheme with the current economic meltdown and happenings? The government of the day has continued to cry out loud that the country is broke. So if the FG alleged it has no fund to accommodate the scheme, then it should be abolish. OBJ did an honorable thing eradicating a similar poorly managed program once called “toll gates”. It is time Buhari’s led government to be decisive and to extend that same appropriateness of reasoning to other cul-de-sac programs that takes away rather than enrich the nation.
We cannot afford to place these kids and young ones in a daily temptations and combustible frustration again after passing through lot of frustration while in school for needless persistent strikes that stretches 4 years program to 7 years in our Institutions. While the huge cost of running the NYSC is one issue, accountability is another as there have been several claims of corrupt practices around the scheme.
So, if government still doesn’t know what to do to the NYSC, here is little suggestion: One, FG should scrap the scheme and facilitate the total sum of entitlement of each Corp members, hand it over to them at the point of graduation and free them; Two, if the scheme is to be retained, it should be re-branded to reflect present day realities and avert pointless postponements; Three, the certificate should be recommendable but shouldn’t be a pre-requisite for any meaningful post-school sojourn; and finally government should beam its searchlight on corruption in the scheme.
Ahmed Abdulrahman, Kaduna, [email protected]