Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar yesterday said that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme should not be scrapped. Atiku, however, said that the programme instituted in 1973 is more than due for a review to re-energise it towards the attainment of its set objectives of national cohesion, integration, unity and stability.
Atiku spoke yesterday in Yola against the backdrop of the 3rd commencement ceremony of the American University of Nigeria (AUN) and the release of prospective corps members expected to join their colleagues from all parts of the country for the next call up by the NYSC for the compulsory scheme.
The former Vice President flayed calls in some quarters to abolish the programme, maintaining that despite the unfortunate and regrettable death of ten corps members in the recent post-election violence, the benefits of the unification programme are by far greater than its perceived shortcomings.
He cited the recent spate of bombings in the country, and for which, regrettably, no arrests have yet been made. He then called on security agencies to rise to the occasion by apprehending terrorists in the country and having them charged to the courts of law.
He criticized the legal action being instituted by some persons, seeking to scrap the NYSC programme, noting that no nation should formulate or reverse its policies out of sentiments.
Atiku explained that the youths are the building blocks of unity and that the NYSC has contributed greatly to achieving the objectives of unity, togetherness, harmony, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.
He said that since the introduction of the NYSC programme in 1973, the scheme has enabled the nation’s young men and women to appreciate the ethnic and cultural diversity of the country, thereby significantly helping them re-think their prejudices and promoting their understanding.
While noting that prejudice imprisons and constricts the mind, Atiku said with the NYSC programme, many graduates of tertiary institutions have remarkably managed to perceive their country more broad-mindedly.
He said that no country that went through a civil war should take unity for granted by dismantling the gains of the NYSC.
He praised the Federal Government for the compensation of affected families even as he pointed out that no amount can pay for the loss of such promising young men cut down in their prime.
He said that only justice, as demanded by the affected families can ameliorate the loss and stem the growing culture of impunity in the country.
Atiku also appealed to Nigerians to support the actions of President Goodluck Jonathan so far taken at healing the wounds inflicted on the nation by these killings, which pain was also aggravated by the poor management of the incident by the local administration in the affected areas.
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