By Romanus Ugwu
Fifty years ago, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme was born. As one of the ways of bringing about reintegration, national unity and cohesion after the Nigeria-Biafra civil war between 1967 and 1970, the then military government, under the headship of General Yakubu Gowon, promulgated a decree establishing the NYSC.
The scheme, which required one-year compulsory service from graduates of tertiary institutions to their fatherland, came into existence through Decree 24 of May 22, 1973, now referenced as NYSC, CAP N84, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.
Gowon, in his Independence Anniversary broadcast on October 1, 1972, announced government’s plans to establish the scheme as a follow-up action to actualise the ‘three Rs’ of Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation, to speed up the healing process in a country recovering from a civil war.
In the wise thinking of the leadership of the then military junta, it would take more than gunfire and armoured tanks to unite the numerous ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria into a cohesive whole. They also reasoned that, since unity and peaceful coexistence cannot be decreed, the best pathway would be to create a sustainable platform that would engender mutual trust, camaraderie, respect and understanding among the youth.
The NYSC scheme, therefore, came with lofty objectives, enshrined in NYSC Act, CAP N84, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, like to inculcate discipline in Nigerian youths by instilling in them a tradition of industry at work, patriotic and loyal service to the country in any situation they may find themselves. Others include raising the moral standard of the Nigerian youths by giving them the opportunity to learn about higher ideals of national achievement, and social and cultural improvement; to develop in the Nigerian youths, attitudes of mind acquired through shared experience and suitable training to make them more amenable to mobilisation in the national interest; to develop common ties among youths and promote national unity by ensuring that they are assigned to jobs in states other than their state of origin.
Other objectives are to encourage corps members to seek at the end of their service year, career employment all over the country, thus, promoting the free movement of labour. It is also to induce employers, partly through their experience with corps members, to employ more readily qualified Nigerians, irrespective of their state of origin, and to enable Nigerian youths to acquire the spirit of self-reliance.
However, despite the laudable objectives of the scheme, the establishment came with resistance with university students, targeted for nation-building, embarked on protests to express their anger that dedicating one whole year to the service of the fatherland would be an unnecessary waste of time, as it would, according to them, delay their target of securing available jobs upon graduation.
Parents, relatives and guardians equally expressed discomfort over the safety of their children deployed to far-distance states in a country just emerging from a bloody conflict, which made the journey outside the cultural zone seemingly precarious. Insisting that far-distance deployment of their children was tantamount to putting them on a slaughter slab that must be resisted, they also expressed other concerns about discomforting delay in reaping the fruit of their painstaking efforts after making much sacrifices to see them through tertiary education.
However, brushing aside the concerns of the students and their parents, the then military junta went ahead to not only establish the scheme but also gave it legal protection with Decree No. 24.
After overcoming the hurdles, the first set of corps members, graduates, numbering 2,364 in 30 years and below, were on July 2, 1973 mobilised from the then-existing Nigerian universities, like the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Ahmadu Bello University and University of Lagos, to different parts of the country.
Ever since then, the scheme has continued to grow in leaps and bounds, defying numerous teething challenges and undergoing some structural transformations through the Act which repealed Decree No. 24 of May 22, 1973, with four cardinal programmes, comprising orientation course; primary assignment; community development service and winding-up/passing-out.
Some of the transformations include director-general replacing national director as chief executive, National Directorate replacing Directorate of the scheme, NYSC State Governing Board replacing NYSC State Committee with its membership and functions retained.
Other restructurings include the Act which provided the establishment of an NYSC Local Government Committee in each Local Government Area in the county, specifying the composition and functions of these Committees, and finally the creation of zonal offices in line with government’s objective of grassroots development.
Sounding loud among the transformations is that the scheme, with a humble beginning of 2,364 corps members mobilised at inception presently mobilises 350,000 Prospective Corps Members (PCMs) on average, for service every year, making it the biggest youth mobilisation agency in Africa.
The NYSC has had 22 chief executives, starting from Col. Ahmadu Ali (retd) to the present director-general, Brigadier-General Y.D. Ahmed. Individually and collectively, they made various impactful contributions to the development and repositioning the scheme in line with the vision of the founding fathers.
Part of the evolution as a dynamic institution in reaction to socio-economic stimuli is that the scheme is under the supervision of the Ministry Youth and Sports Development.
Like other government parastatals, NYSC has a governing board, appointed by the President, charged with key responsibilities of appointing, promoting and disciplining of staff members, in addition to the welfare and deployment of corps members for service, as well as policy formulation.
Also worthy of note is that the scheme today operates 13 departments, four autonomous units, six area offices, 37 secretariats, 148 zonal offices and 774 local government area offices that drive its policies and programmes in line with its objectives, encapsulated in the enabling Act.
Critical assessments of the scheme’s 50 years trajectory indicate that it has remained on course as a pivot of national unity and development, and has equally grown in leaps and bounds over the years.
Nigerian youth have over the years demonstrated enthusiasm with the scheme, willing to serve their fatherland with “heart and might.” The youth have, through the scheme, contributed to national development, with many of them doing excellently in their communities of primary assignment. This is despite the deteriorating insecurity in the country, which the management of the scheme said has exerted much pressure on its deployment and relocation policies.
As parents and corps members look forward to the federal government addressing the security challenge in the country, they also want addressed the disturbing attitude of some state and local governments, who renege in the discharge of their statutory responsibilities, as enshrined in the NYSC Act, to the scheme. It is the responsibility of state governments to provide adequate orientation camps.
Speaking on the loft policy behind the NYSC scheme, Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, once said: “When General Yakubu Gowon and that government decided to come up with the idea of the NYSC, the central rationale was to promote the unity of Nigeria as the country was just coming out of the civil war. We have been singing the song that says ‘though the tongue may differ in brotherhood we stand.’
“You know that the life wire of any nation is its youths and once their patriotism is captured, that can spread across. So, the rationale for bringing on the NYSC scheme by General Gowon up till now subsists. Every country and even Nigeria is still, on daily basis, trying to promote its unity in diversity.
“With the strength of our youths, sending them to the different parts of the country, some of us have never been to the parts of the country where we served, never knew their cultures, never experienced them, never knew that they were even Nigerians up north or in the South East that you shared your common language or culture with.”
Over the years, the NYSC scheme has left indelible imprints in the proverbial sands of time in the past 50 years, particularly in the areas of health, education, infrastructural development, entrepreneurial empowerment and advocacies, among others.
Found, understandably, in the remotest parts of the country, even where the natives dread to live, the unquantifiable and immeasurable contributions of the scheme in the area of education have reflected on the corps members sustaining the system in both primary and secondary schools to the point that if their services are withdrawn, there will be a system collapse.
Again, apart from corps members imparting academic knowledge, they also take charge of the healthcare needs of people in the remote parts of villages to the extent that they are the only accessible doctors to the people in those areas. Corps medical personnel (doctors, pharmacists, nurses, medical lab scientists, physiotherapists) through the NYSC Health Initiative for Rural Dwellers (HIRD) regularly ensure free medicare to the rural dwellers.
It is also pertinent to note that the NYSC, in partnership with UNICEF drove the biggest HIV/AIDS sensitisation project in the world for so many years, through the Peer Educator Trainers (PETs) programme. Corps members are the vanguards and the engine room of the project which has rescued millions of Nigerians, especially the youths, from the claws of the health monster, HIV/AIDS, through massive education and generation of awareness on the virus, treatment and preventive measures.
The climax of the scheme’s contributions to the entrepreneurial development of the corps members was in the introduction of Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) programme in 2012. SAED, since its introduction, as a socio-economic stimulus, has not only empowered corps members to become self-reliant and employers of labour, but also reoriented them against over-dependence on the few available white-collar jobs.
The skill programme,which starts during the orientation course, with in-camp training, and progresses to post-camp training, after the orientation course, has also provided start-up loans to corps members.
The SAED is one of the greatest initiatives by the scheme that has continued to raise entrepreneurs amongst the corps members over the years through provision of requisite platforms not only to acquire or hone their skills, but equally link them up with financial institutions such as Bank of Industry (BOI), Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Access Bank, that extend grants and credit facilities to the corps entrepreneurs.
The biggest success story is that many ex-corps members have become successful entrepreneurs, running profitable businesses, mentoring, employing thousands of Nigerians, and contributing to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Testimony to the fact that the scheme has evolved over the years is the NYSC ventures. The scheme has established integrated pilot farm settlements in the six geopolitical zones of the country. They are sited in Ezillo, Ebonyi State; Iseyin, Oyo State; Obubra, Cross River State; Dangulbi, Bauchi State; Samantha, Kebbi State; and Leleyi, Kwali in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
Others include the Livestock Feed Mill at Ipaja, Lagos; garri processing factory, Afon, Kwara State; Rice Mill, Abakiliki, Ebonyi State; Garment Factories in, Minna, Niger State; Mgbakwu, Anambra sytate; NYSC Water Factory and Bakery, Kubwa, FCT; NYSC Bakery, Water and Garment Factories, Keffi, Nasarawa state, and NYSC Printing Press, Kaduna.
All of them are contributing to the national economy, while also serving as centres for skill acquisition and entrepreneurship training for both corps members and youths of the community where they are located.
According to pundits, the use of the corps members for elections may have undoubtedly come with an admixture of pains and gains. It has, however, over the years become the biggest contributor to the political trajectory of Nigeria’s democracy. In fact, in the words of the Chairman Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, Nigeria is fortunate to have NYSC in the conduct of elections.
According to Yakubu, “the NYSC, corps members are among the most educated, most committed, most patriotic and most readily available election duty staff in Nigeria. We are really happy that we have been collaborating with the NYSC, they go to all the nooks and crannies of the country without complaint.”
Further commending the contributions of the corps members, the INEC boss said: “One of the most difficult elections we conducted was the last Anambra governorship election. The Director General literarily relocated to Anambra and encouraged the corps members to participate in that election. The good news was that we had a successful, credible, fantastic election in which not one person was slapped, let alone injured or even killed.
“We will continue to do what we need to do to ensure that we protect the safety, security and welfare of the corps members. I want to assure you that we take our obligations in the MoU very seriously and I want to once again thank the scheme for standing by Nigeria, the electoral process, and our democracy.”
To cap up its growth and development, the scheme has established NYSC TV and Radio stations in order to ensure robust information dissemination, while also serving as a fertile training ground for corps members to hone their skills in broadcast media, under the supervision of NYSC managers.
Gowon, in his assessment recently, said: “I appreciate the contributions of the past and present corps members in making the scheme become a huge success. I thank the members of the board and the management for being supportive of the programmes.
“I also pray that one day, the country will be ruled like the leadership of the NYSC, where there will be unity and where Nigerians from the south will travel to the north and enjoy fura, while those in the north will travel to Lagos and South West to enjoy amala.”
President Buhari, in backing the continuation of the scheme, noted recently through Garba Shehu, his Senior Special Assistant on media & publicity: “Every time I meet with former Head of State, General Gowon, like recently, I still commend him for the initiative of the NYSC. The NYSC is spectacular in many ways.
“Some of the corps members that came from Port Harcourt, Lagos and Calabar can now feel the heat of Daura and how close it is to the desert. I feel very strongly about NYSC, and I am wishing the corps members all the very best. I assure them that they will be much better as Nigerians after your experience.”
At 50 years, expectations are very high that the schemes should break more grounds and in the words of the minister of sports more reforms are underway, especially in the battle to end the possibility of fake discharge certificates as well as the confusion arising in the eligibility of Nigerian graduates in the Diaspora.
His words: “Reform is a constant thing and the NYSC is looking at some reforms because we have had some challenges with those that are in the Diaspora as to whether they should serve or not. There seems to be misunderstanding. The NYSC is working to ensure that those fussy areas about the laws are cleared. It is either you are 30 years and you serve or you are above, and you are exempted from the scheme.
“There is a solid database now because we have had cases of people collecting fake certificates, and going forward, one would have no doubt about the genuineness of the NYSC certificates they have. This is because we are going to produce the certificates with watermarks so that if you get a fake NYSC certificate you know that it is fake.
“And you would not need to wait ten years in order to discover that it is fake. You will discover the fake one immediately after you see it. Even now, if you don’t have an original NYSC certificate, it would be possible for us to know within five minutes because it would show up once we press the button from our end.”
With the gains of the NYSC scheme in the days and years ahead, Nigerians expect most robust youth mobilisation for socio-ecenomic development, within really affirming: ‘To serve our fatherland, with love, strength and faith.’