10th December, 2012
With the security challenge in the country posing unprecedented threat to the continued existence of the National Youth Service Corps, the management of the corps devises means to grapple with the unpalatable drift
Since it was established almost 40 years ago, the desire of most young undergraduates has always been to be part of the mandatory National Youth Service. Apart from signalling the completion of the tertiary phase of their academic training, the service year also prepares the fresh graduates for future assignments. It fosters peaceful co-existence among the educated youth, most of who are assembled from different parts of the country and serve in locations other than their states of origin. But these long held ideals are lately being threatened by the insecurity in the country, which is being cited by critics as reason warranting the discontinuation of the scheme.
A fresh window was opened for the ventilation of this security concern by the Governor of Imo State, Owelle Rochas Okorocha. While delivering a speech at the 50th anniversary lecture of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria recently, Okorocha called for the scrapping of the NYSC which, according to him, has outlived its usefulness. “The NYSC was set up to promote unity but that has failed, so we need to look into other areas to improve the quality of education for our youths,” he said.
Okorocha’s remark was borne out of concern by a section of the public that recent security challenges in the country have placed the lives of the corps members at severe risk and ignited a palpable apprehension among serving and prospective members. The management of the scheme has said it is not unaware of the security challenge but is taking necessary steps to tackle the problems. With the killing of corps members in some states still fresh in the minds of Nigerians, coupled with the escalating attacks by Islamic extremists, some corps members posted to the North had cause to storm the Yakubu Gowon House headquarters of the NYSC earlier in the year to announce their rejection of their posting. To them, being posted to the North was a death sentence. “We prefer to die here instead of being killed by Boko Haram in the North,” some of them told journalists. Some of those posted to troubled states were reported to have been frantically visiting hospitals, looking for health certificates to present as excuse to be redeployed to safer states.
The challenge also worried members of the House of Representatives, who earlier in the year directed the NYSC headquarters to cancel all posting of corps members to states in the North-East which are facing security challenges, until the security threat had been satisfactorily addressed. The position of the lawmakers was particularly hinged on the fact that corps members were “ill-equipped and ill-trained to defend themselves” from unprovoked attacks, just as the framers of the NYSC Act did not envisage such threat to the lives of innocent Nigerian youths.
The situation has left the Brig. Gen. Okore-Affia management of the NYSC with the task of ensuring a semblance of equitable distribution of corps members among the states of the federation on the one hand and, on the other, ensuring the personal safety of each member. Acknowledging the challenges the scheme now faces, the NYSC helmsman promised not to send corps members to volatile states unless governors of such states take responsibility for their personal safety. “Any of the volatile states that want corps members to be posted there must write with firm assurance of adequate security and would bear the consequences of any threat to the security of the corps members,” Gen. Okore-Affia said at the unveiling of a new posting policy of the NYSC.
The DG also assured that, “We will not in any way expose these young men and women to death; we will not waste them because of the obligation.”
Last month, the orientation course for NYSC, Batch ‘C’ members scheduled for 6 November nationwide was postponed in three states – Bayelsa, Borno and Yobe – in line with ensuring their safety. According to a statement issued by the Head of Press and Public Relations Unit in the NYSC Directorate Headquarters in Abuja, Mrs. Abosede Aderibigbe, while the postponement for Bayelsa was prompted by the recent flooding in the state and the subsequent accommodation of displaced victims at the NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp in Kaiama, the postponement for Borno and Yobe was necessitated by security challenges in the states. Consequently, corps members deployed to the three states were directed to undergo their orientation course from 28 November to 19 December. The corps members earlier posted to Borno were moved to Wanune in Tarka Local Government Area of Benue State and those earlier posted to Yobe were moved to Magaji Dan Yamusa, in Keffi, Nasarawa State for their orientation course.
The move appears to have paid off as some of the affected corps members who spoke with TheNEWS were full of praise for Okore-Affia. Sandra Ebikwo, an indigene of Kogi earlier posted to Borno but currently undergoing orientation at Makurdi, Niger State, told this magazine that, “There has been no threat here. So far it has been calm and normal. There are soldiers and other security operatives around and they are doing so much to ensure our lives and property are safe here.” Ebikwo’s position was buttressed by Hajara Isah Abubakar, who added that “The NYSC management has done well in ensuring security of corps members inside and around the orientation camp here and so far we feel safe.”
Penultimate week, a Federal High Court in Ibadan, Oyo State, dismissed the suit by an Ibadan-based lawyer, Oluwole Aluko, against the President and Attorney-General of the Federation seeking the invalidation of the NYSC scheme. Aluko had contended that the laws establishing NYSC amount to servitude and forced labour and are therefore inconsistent with the 1999 Constitution, adding that the NYSC Act is inferior to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, and ought to be abolished.
But the defendants, questioning the locus standi of the plaintiff to institute the suit, maintained that “There is no cause for action against the President and Attorney-General as the National Youth Service Corps Decree (now Act), is an existing law entrenched in the Constitution and not inconsistent with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution or any other statutes.” In his judgment, Justice Jonathan Shakarho upheld the arguments of President Jonathan and the Attorney-General and maintained that the plaintiff’s originating summons did not contain any reliefs/declaration being sought, pointing out that the NYSC is a training scheme with the objective of training youths of Nigeria to imbibe discipline, high morality, self-reliance and patriotism and to promote national unity and integration. The judge agreed with the defendants’ argument that such training was excluded from the definition of forced and compulsory labour under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Those who share the sentiment of sustaining the scheme believe that no other programme in the country best meets objectives of the NYSC. In an editorial, The Tide held that, “…The reasons proffered in 1973 by the Yakubu Gowon administration for the establishment of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, scheme are still very relevant in this country’s search for an enduring national unity. There is therefore no dispute on the desirability of the scheme and its benefits in our desire to maintain a strong, united and peaceful country despite recent assaults on its integrity.”
The newspaper added that though some Nigerians, bewildered by recent occurrences had almost pushed a disillusioned and grieving country towards the inevitability of accepting the idea of scrapping it, the scheme still remains one of the symbols of Nigeria’s unity that should not be allowed to suffer on any account and maintain that apart from providing further training for the nation’s youth, it has expanded the horizon of the youth, made them to understand one another better and created room for mutual acceptance.
It concluded: “The NYSC is only one of the many Federal Government schemes that bring people together across the country… Indeed, some communities still depend on the posting of corps members for graduate teachers in their schools, while the provision of manpower for the economy at various levels cannot be evaluated. On the corps members themselves, the friendship and even marriage it has facilitated will remain indelible.”
In the same vein, the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, opined that the NYSC has become a symbol of unity for the nation, pointing out that dismantling it would mean that Nigerians should not settle down and reside outside their states of origin. A statement issued and signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the Forum, Mr. Anthony Sani after a meeting in Kaduna, gave reasons the Federal Government should continue to sustain the NYSC programme, saying, “This is precisely because the ideals of fostering national unity which informed the establishment of NYSC are still relevant.
“What’s more, scrapping NYSC is as good as saying people should not settle outside their states of origin. Therefore, NYSC scheme should be retained and spirited efforts be made to ensure the security of members. While condemning the killings of some NYSC members who were victims of the violence in some parts of the country, it is the considered opinion of ACF that the NYSC scheme should not be abolished,” the ACF maintained.
While the debates rages, indications are that the management of the scheme are also working assiduously to positively turn things around in the four-decade-old scheme. TheNEWS gathered that arising from so many subjective and objective criticisms that have trailed the scheme, the managers went back to the drawing board to reinvent a scheme tailored to the security and socio-economic dictates of the time. At an interactive session with Media Executives in Abuja to unveil what he called the ‘two focal points’ of his administration soon after his assumption of office, the NYSC Director-General, Okore-Affia hinted of plans to accord topmost priority to response to the security challenges in the country as they affect the safety of corps members as well as restructuring of the Scheme to focus on functional entrepreneurial training for corps members. He disclosed his plan to establish a Distress Call Centre, DCC, to help ensure proper communication and response to distress situations involving corps members.
TheNEWS learnt that the issue of security is being pursued with vigour as the scheme has increased the tempo of its liaison with security agencies and other stakeholders with the aim of enhancing the safety of corps members nationwide. Strategically also, the establishment of the DCC at the Directorate Headquarters in Abuja has been a major step by the Scheme toward addressing the recurring security challenge in the country. Inaugurated by the immediate past Minister of Youth Development, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, the DCC operates 24/7 and is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities that will ensure speedy and effective handling of distress situations involving corps members. Data of corps members, including their phone numbers as well as those of various security agencies, traditional rulers, prominent personalities and other relevant stakeholders in all nooks and crannies of the country, are fed into the DCC server. It is programmed to recognise the service location of any corps member who calls, making it easier to contact security agencies and other stakeholders whose immediate intervention would be necessary.
The scheme has also entered into collaboration with security agencies to enhance the security of corps members during the periods of Orientation Programme and Primary Assignment. In this nexus, the locations of corps members’ lodges across the federation have been made available to these agencies so as to facilitate quick reaction when they are in distress.
A corollary to the IT-driven measure is the introduction of Martial Art training into the Orientation course content so as to equip corps members with the requisite skills for self-defence. This is part of the review of the orientation course content which also saw the introduction of skill acquisition and entrepreneurship programmes into the content as a paradigm shift.
The Okore-Affia-led management is also quick to say that beyond fostering national unity and integration, the scheme is also investing massively in the capacity development of corps members in line with the Transformation Agenda of the President Jonathan administration. The skills acquisition and entrepreneurship development training for corps members was conceived against the backdrop of the alarming rate of unemployment in the country, which, according to the National Bureau of Statistics’ Survey Report, had risen from 21.1 per cent in 2010 to 23.9 per cent in 2011. The programme has among its objectives the sensitisation and mobilisation of 200,000 young graduates for skills acquisition annually, facilitation of the training and mentoring of 100,000 young graduates in skill acquisition and entrepreneurship development for self-employment annually as well as the promotion of public-private partnership for self-reliance annually. Some of the features of the training programme include general sensitisation of all corps members at the orientation camps and their actual training in various skill areas. The trainees will normally choose their preferred skill areas and go through at least ten days of intensive training in camp. For some of the vocational areas, the corps members attain perfection in the skills right at the camp. In other areas, they are linked with master-trainers for off-camp follow-up training.
Checks by the magazine revealed that as at the end of the 2012 Batch ‘B’ orientation course, 45,000 corps members had been trained in various skill areas. The number comprises 24,074 males and 20,936 females. A further breakdown shows that 5,404 were trained in agro-allied skills, 5,509 in food processing and preservation, 8,035 in culture and tourism-related skills, and 5,062 in cosmetology. ICT had 8,119, power and energy 2,885 and environment 2,672. Another set of 2,837 members acquired skills in beautification, 2,057 in construction and 2,425 in education. Sources at the NYSC headquarters hinted that as part of steps towards consolidating on the achievements so far recorded, the NYSC management recently held a meeting with stakeholders with a view to fashioning out areas of support in terms of curriculum development, training, monitoring, policy advocacy and influencing, as well as funding. The stakeholders, drawn from both the public and private sectors, indicated interest in assisting the NYSC to maximise the benefits of the programme, especially through technical support.
It is also intensifying efforts in the implementation of the War against Poverty, WAP, programme, which it runs in collaboration with the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs. It is also aimed at helping corps members to become self-employed and job creators through entrepreneurial training as well as loan package to enable the beneficiaries establish agro-based ventures. Statistically, NYSC has trained and empowered over 1,376 corps members in various agro-allied ventures/businesses in the last one year. An interest-free loan of N229,500,000 has already been released to the beneficiaries of the training as soft loans at zero per cent interest rate to enable them kick-start their own businesses. The purpose is to raise a crop of entrepreneurs that will drive the economy and not an army of job seekers that will trudge the streets in search of scarcely available jobs. To institutionalise this, the Federal Government increased the number of departments in the NYSC from seven to 11, with Department of Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development being one of the new ones.
As Okore-Affia noted in a chat with media executives recently: “It is no longer enough to bring in the youth, take them through the various programmes of the Scheme and pass them out jobless. Our focus now is to improve their existing skills and give them entrepreneurship skills towards making them self-employed. We want to build on their capacity to make business plans; you know empowerment is dependent on good plans; and so, if a plan is not viable, we will advise them on what to do.”
He further noted: “There is no gainsaying the fact that in the months ahead, the scheme will continue to leverage and build on the gains so far achieved so that the NYSC will live up to its vision of developing a scheme that is dynamic enough to meet new challenges – thus becoming the leading light of youth organizations in Africa.”
The one-year National Service was established by former head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, via Decree 24 of 22 May 1973, shortly after the Nigerian Civil War to foster national integration. Twenty years after its establishment, the decree was repealed by Decree 51 of 16 June 1993 – now an Act of Parliament. Even when Nigerians are genuinely concerned about the security challenges facing the NYSC, many strongly believe that the NYSC should be sustained, but must continue to live up to the true meaning of its mission of mobilising and grooming graduate youths for the promotion of national unity, sustainable development and self-reliance.
—Desmond Utomwen/Abuja