Sir: It is most unfortunate that the highly laudable National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), a scheme begun about 53 years ago precisely on the 22nd of May, 1973 by the General Yakubu Gowon-led regime, may have now outlived its usefulness. 

At its creation, the primary aims of the NYSC are to promote national unity and integration, develop common ties among youths and instill a sense of self-reliance and patriotism, to remove prejudices, and eliminate discriminative tendencies in the Nigerian youths.

If viewed critically, the scheme at its inception was properly thought out and skilfully executed and it is to the eternal credit of the programme that most of the youths in Nigeria are able to see what the world outside their domain looks like. Many of the youths from the South who never knew nor understand the cultures of those in the North are able to do so and vice versa.

But quite unfortunately, for more than two decades now, the NYSC has become something else completely. To begin with, the raging spate of insecurity in Nigeria has led to the untimely deaths of so many corpers most of whose parents have continued to carry their agonies all alone. Corps members are being abducted on daily basis while on assignment to serve their country and even after going through all the evils that now attend the programme, those who are able to scale through them alive are still thrown into the unemployment camp.  

The most disturbing aspect which as a matter of fact now serves to render the entire scheme useless is that in order to avoid their children being posted to danger and trouble zones, there are claims by parents that they now pay as much as N200,000 to corrupt NYSC officials to get their children and wards posted to South West states especially Lagos.

If this is true, the import is that so much corruption has crawled into candidates’ postings, and the original aim of the scheme is already defeated. It means that the NYSC scheme is now cash and carry and only the children of those who cannot afford the huge bribes to officials of the NYSC get thrown to the danger zones.

This is quite unfair and a clear signal of probably the scheme having outlived its usefulness and the need for it to be scrapped. And if the government is unwilling to do that and still thinks scrapping it would be tantamount to throwing away the baby with the bathwater, then the federal government should ensure that each corps member is given a year comprehensive life insurance for the one-year duration of the scheme.

It is a very crucial and urgent decision the government needs to take in order not to continue to jeopardise the lives of the Nigerian youths whose parents continue to struggle so hard to see through schools.  

Jide Oyewusi is the coordinator of Ethics Watch International Nigeria.