Is compulsory national service still safe for Nigeria’s graduates?

By Chukwuemeka Theodore

When the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) was founded in 1973, its purpose was clear: to heal the wounds of a civil war and bind a fractured country together by sending young graduates to live and work far from home. For decades, it served that purpose. But Nigeria today is not the Nigeria of 1973, and a scheme that compels young people to travel must be judged against the dangers of the present.

Kidnapping, terrorism, banditry, communal violence, unsafe roads, unemployment, inflation and decaying infrastructure now shape daily life. For corps members, these are not abstract problems. The risk begins before service does: prospective corps members travel long distances to unfamiliar states, often unsure whether they will arrive safely.

The question is not whether national unity still matters. It does. The question is whether compelling graduates to serve in unsafe conditions is the best way to build it, and whether the state can honestly say it is doing enough to keep them alive.

A record of lives lost
The evidence is troubling. The Punch reported that between 2018 and 2022, road accidents involving corps members killed 40 and injured 98. In 2026, four more died in a motor accident on the Yola–Mubi road in Adamawa State. The Edo Forum also reported a crash that claimed the lives of 16 corps members travelling to Gombe for service.

Kidnapping is an equally grave threat. The Foundation for Investigative Journalism reported that at least 83 corps members were abducted between 2013 and 2023. Among them was Sampson Worlu, kidnapped and murdered in 2015 even after a ransom was paid. Other reported cases include:

18 corps members abducted in Akwa Ibom State while serving as election personnel (Punch)

4 abducted along the Abuja–Kubwa axis in 2020 (investigative journalists)

Corps members abducted along the Onitsha–Owerri road on 1 October 2020 (Punch)

8 abducted while travelling to Zamfara (The Guardian)

Abasifreke Joseph, abducted on his way to Kogi in 2025 (Punch), and 15 corps members abducted in Kogi in August 2025 (Premium Times)

Violence has also claimed lives directly. NEMA confirmed that three corps members were killed during the 2013 Jos crisis. In 2017, a corps member was shot dead in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. Bomoi Suleiman Yusuf was killed by armed robbers on the Jere–Abuja highway while travelling with 16 others. Stephanie Terungwa was found dead after being declared missing. Another corps member was among four people killed by suspected bandits on the Jikamshi–Funtua road in Katsina. The Punch reported that more than 20 corps members died in violent incidents between 2015 and 2026.

Even these numbers understate the problem. There is no publicly available, comprehensive official NYSC database recording road deaths, abductions and insecurity-related fatalities since 1973. A scheme that cannot say how many of its young people it has lost cannot claim to be protecting them. That gap is itself a failure of accountability.

Behind each statistic is a graduate who answered a national call and a family that waited for news. Many corps members are young people posted far from home, with little knowledge of local dangers and no means of protecting themselves.

When they are harmed, the loss is not only personal. It weakens public trust in a scheme that asks every graduate to take part.

Beyond physical danger
Safety is not the only concern. Corps members report poor treatment at their places of primary assignment, exploitation, harassment and inadequate security at some postings. The monthly allowance is widely regarded as insufficient.

Deployment often ignores professional skills, placing graduates in roles unrelated to their training and wasting the very talent the scheme claims to develop. A programme meant to build national pride should not leave young people feeling underpaid, unprotected and undervalued.

The policy question
These circumstances raise a question that can no longer be avoided: is a compulsory one-year national service still the safest and most effective way to achieve the objectives for which the scheme was created? The Federal Government appears to recognise its weight. In 2025, it set up a committee to carry out a comprehensive review of the NYSC, with the safety of corps members as a central concern. That review is welcome, but it must produce action, not another report left to gather dust. Parents, graduates and the wider public deserve to know what the committee finds, and what will change as a result.

A way forward
Reform needs not mean abolition. The NYSC can be rebuilt around the principle that no graduate should be asked to risk their life for a year of service. Several measures deserve serious consideration:

Safer deployment. Post corps members only to locations that meet verified security standards, backed by transparent risk assessments.

Safer travel. Provide secure, organised transport to and from orientation camps and postings.

Skills-based placement. Match graduates to roles that reflect their qualifications.

Better welfare. Review allowances and enforce minimum standards for accommodation and treatment by host organisations.

Accountability. Establish a public database of incidents involving corps members, and sanction employers who exploit or harass them.

Voluntary options. Debate whether the scheme should become voluntary, or offer alternatives such as community or remote service in high-risk areas.

None of these steps is simple, and each would cost money and political will. But the cost of inaction is measured in funerals, ransom payments and shattered families. Those are prices no country should ask its young graduates to pay.

Conclusion
National service was designed to build unity, not to put young lives at risk. A programme that compels graduates to travel and serve, yet cannot guarantee their safety, owes them more than good intentions. The government must now choose: reform of the NYSC so that it protects those it conscripts, or accept that its founding promise can no longer be kept. Nigeria owes its young people safety first, and service second.

Theodore Chukwuemeka ( Ph.D) writes from School of Post Graduate Studies, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Anambra State.