With the incessant killings of the National Youth Service Corps members in some parts of Northern Nigeria, it is high time the programme is scrapped. Year in year out, NYSC members are killed in an unprovoked manner in some parts of Northern Nigeria. In 2008, a NYSC member Miss. Helen Bassey, who was serving in Borno State, was raped and killed thereafter. What was her offence? Her offence was that she wore trousers which is the official clothes of the NYSC and that she looked like a prostitute. She was abhorred by her oppressors as a prostitute because of her attire, yet they did not resent her body but rapped and thereafter killed.
The post election violence that erupted in some parts of the North led to the death of 11 members of the NYSC in Bauchi State. Zonkwa area of Kaduna State was worst hit as more than 300 people were killed during the riot. The violence was ignited in twelve northern States when results of the presidential elections were being released. Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), won major States in the Northern part of the country, some people started sending short message service (SMS) to their well wishers and friends that the presidential candidate of CPC General Mohammadu Buhari (rtd) had won the election. But when the final result emerged the incumbent President and presidential candidate of the PDP, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was declared the winner by the INEC. The results of the elections did not go down well with the followers of the CPC candidate, General Mohammadu Buhari (rtd).
Thus, the followers of CPC became irked and started killing innocent people. Most PDP Stalwarts had their houses burnt. NYSC members were not spared as they were seen as tools used to rig the presidential elections. So, many of them were locked up in houses and set ablaze. Some of them were severed into halves, others had their bodies mangled while most of them had their limbs and arm amputated. About 25 Youth Corps members were killed in bomb blast that occurred in Maiduguri and Suleja. Since its inception in 1973, the blood of the innocent corps members has been used to water and fertilize the womb of the earth in the North. They are killed like Christmas chicken or Salah rams!
Some of the corps members who were victims of the election violence were supposed to be the bread winners of their families after the completion of the compulsory one year programme. Some of their parents borrowed money to train them in the universities hoping they will assist them to repay such loans when they get jobs. Some parents sold fried bean cakes ( akara), fried yam, pof pof to raise money for their wards’ school fees. Other parents sold firewood while others did daily paid jobs to raise money to bring up their children to the level they were before they were sent to their early graves.
In most cases, corps member are usually abandoned by state coordinators of the NYSC as nobody cares about their welfare. They are not provided accommodation, transportation or places of service etc. Since the few Primary and secondary schools they are usually posted cannot absorb all of them, they roam from one company to another where they are usually turned down. After the three weeks orientation, they are left as sheep without shepherd. Corps members also look for accommodation by themselves, feed themselves etc. Every year, corps members are subjected to untold hardships and starvation as their stipends are usually fixed in bank accounts till the end of the yearly programme by some state coordinators of the NYSC. Some NYSC state coordinators only pay corps members at the end of the one year programme after acquiring huge interests on their money.
Thus, NYSC members are exposed to all manners of difficulties during the one year service. Considering the problems that confront NYSC members, it is long over due for the programme to be scrapped since it has outlived its usefulness. However if the programme must be sustained, it should be reorganized and restructured. So, NYSC members should be allowed to serve in their states of origin or their geo-political zones. There is no need for NYSC members to be sent to other states other than their states of origin or geo-political zones where their lives has no value and are slaughtered as sacrificial lambs.
Nigerians who do not want the programme to be scrapped are contractors who are benefitting immensely from the programme. Contractors make huge sums of money from the supply of uniforms, shoes, face caps, food items etc. to the members of the NYSC. Complaints are rift that the foods given to corps members are very poor yet the federal government spends so much money on such foods that are diverted to private bank accounts.
Those who do not want the NYSC programme to be scrapped are those who are making big money from the programme but have their children studying in foreign universities and do not return them home to serve the country . How many of those who want the programme to remain will be happy to have their children killed for serving their father’s land? How many of them will spend so much money to train their children only to receive the corpses of their children? How many of such people who are making money from the NYSC will be happy to receive the corpses of their children who volunteered to serve their country?
Those who insist that the programme should continue but have their children studying in foreign universities should return them home to serve in the Northern part of the country where they will be burnt alive for committing no offence. If their children are slaughtered as sacrificial lambs for serving their father’s land, then they will understand the excruciating pains parents go through when their children are exterminated in unprovoked manner just because they want to serve their country. It should be noted that there is no amount of patriotism that can equate life.
Most Nigerians have asked the Federal Government to compensate the families of the victims. I ask, what compensation can resurrect the lives that were lost? Some of the lost souls could have been governors or even presidents tomorrow. If President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was killed as NYSC member, would he be a president today? Or, if Governor Isa Yuguda who said that it was the destiny of the victims to die in the violence was killed while he serving, would he be a governor today? The statement of Governor Isa Yuguda is like adding salt to injury. Instead of pacifying the bereaved, he only succeeded in aggravating their pains. It would have been better for him to keep mute than for him to insult their sensibility. The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) said that the violence that took the lives of the innocent youths was justified. How on earth can anybody or a group of people justify such a senseless killings of harmless patriotic Nigerians? If their children were killed, will they justify the shameless killings?
A 22 Man Panel has been set up by the Federal Government to ascertain the remote and immediate cause of the violence, the number of people killed and how to prevent recurrence of such incident in future. In time past, panels and committees were set up to proffer solutions to such occurrences but did not achieve anything. The question bothering our minds is, will this panel be different from others? Will this panel bring justice to the Nigerian state? Time will tell.
The National Youth Service Corps was established in 1973, three years after the civil war as a means of fostering unity and national integration. It was part of the three programmes of General Yakubu Gowon which included reconstruction, rehabilitation and reintegration. The NYSC programme in the early years of its existence actually brought integration and national unity among the Nigerian youth as some of them got married to people from other tribes while others established joint ventures businesses. However, all the good things that were associated with the programme have been rubbished by the wanton killings of innocent NYSC members in the North.
The major aims of the programme was to foster unity and national integration but as things are today these two ingredients are not in existence in the country except we want to deceive ourselves. As things are today, the people from the South cannot live peacefully in the North, can we say that there is unity and integration in the country at present?
Thus, with the heartaches and sorrows the killings of innocent NYSC members have brought to Nigerians, the programme has outlived its gains and usefulness and should therefore be scrapped forthwith. There is no need of sustaining a programme that brings weeping and sorrow to Nigerians every year.
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