Why FG Should Reform NYSC Scheme —Chukwudi Ibe

If there can be reform in the telecommunication sector; if there can be reform in the power sector; if there can be reform in the Federal Civil Service; if there can be reform in the Pension scheme; then, why can’t there be reform in the NYSC scheme after nearly forty years of its existence? Let the NYSC scheme be made voluntary for fresh graduates. The selection criteria should then be based on whatever level of first degree academic qualification that the government deems fit.

The number should be limited to about fifty fresh graduate applicants per state (with Abuja inclusive) for each service year.

This way the Federal Government will be using one stone to kill two birds.

i.) The NYSC scheme would have been preserved, thereby satisfying those against the scrapping of the scheme.

ii.) The reformed NYSC scheme would then be run with far less financial resources, thereby making it less burdensome for government.

This will be very helpful as there are now more than one hundred public and private universities in the country churning out fresh graduates on yearly basis (and the number keeps increasing).

I had served as a 2005/2006 Batch B corps member in Katagum LGA of Bauchi State. Having known the environment, it is obvious that the corps members working as ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were very vulnerable in that area (neighbouring LGAs inclusive). The casualty figure could have been higher.

In conclusion, for more than four decades since our independence, the Nigerian Telecommunications PLC, NITEL failed to deliver on its duty to provide telecommunication services to Nigerians. The organisation gave so many excuses including technical, financial and otherwise. This fact was clearly confirmed in the interview given by Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom state in an interview in TheNEWS Magazine of 21 February, 2011 (Vol. 36, No. 07, Page 22). He had stated as follows, “We were the initial pioneers in the telecom sector and we were struggling all along to deregulate but there was a lot of opposition from the powers that be then in the Nigerian Telecommunications PLC, NITEL. At a time, they said they did not have the backbone or the facilities to interconnect telephone operators, you could not have more than one million lines, this or that”.

Then one day, a wilful president in the name of Olusegun Obasanjo came up, ignored NITEL with all their excuses and antics and reformed the entire telecommunications sector. Today we all Nigerians (including the NITEL staff) are better off as regards the use of telecommunication facilities in this country. Imagine how far we would have advanced in terms telecommunication if that reform was done in the early 1990s when the GSM revolution started spreading like wild fire on the African continent.

It was about the middle of the last decade that the Federal Government began to take the issue of power sector reforms more seriously. We are yet to seriously feel the impact because the reforms started quite late due to government’s indecisiveness and lack of political will. Had all these reforms in the power sector started long ago, our economy would have been better off.

What is uncertain is if the present Government will reform the NYSC scheme, but what is certain is that one day a wilful president will come up and reform the scheme.