It is not clear if eight abducted graduates and a driver taking them to Zamfara for national service have regained their freedom. The last we heard was that the ransom hunters demanded N4million from a parent. By some luck, a friend’s daughter missed boarding another kidnapper intercepted Port Harcourt-bound bus conveying another set of youth corps members after their orientation at Yola, Adamawa State.
Kidnapping of youth corps members along our highways has become a routine and will continue for as long as our children are forced to present NYSC discharge certificates to find jobs after graduation. Meanwhile, isn’t it interesting that our politicians have successfully used the courts to remove themselves from the same NYSC certificate hurdle?
The army is another group that needs to be removed from the NYSC scheme so that the organisation can grow. Ever since the Scheme took off in 1973, the agency has been managed as if it is a paramilitary organisation. But it is nothing of the sort, either by law or by operationalization.
There is nothing in the NYSC founding charter that confers on it the tag of a paramilitary outfit. The word “paramilitary” does not appear in any section of its enabling law. However, selling it as a paramilitary outfit has allowed the army to control its operations for half of a century.
The Chief of Army Staff and the Inspector General of Police are each allowed to nominate an officer each to the NYSC Board. Neither the army nor the policy were however given the authority to lead the organisation. But by sustaining the false impression that NYSC is a paramilitary outfit, the Army successfully fools succeeding civilian governments into allowing the military to continue with its (mis)management of the scheme.
Consequently, for all its 50-year existence, none of the agency’s experienced senior staff reached the pinnacle of service as Director-General. Only inexperienced Generals from the Army Education Corps are recycled as managers of the Scheme, constantly parachuted into leadership whenever there is a vacancy.
NYSC is not a paramilitary agency. Even if it were, other paramilitary agencies (civil defense and road marshals, for examples) groom their officers to lead. And the difference between those agencies and the NYSC is clear. Within a relatively shorter period, these younger institutions have become stronger organisations, while a 50-year old NYSC continues like a toddler learning how to walk.
What the army is doing to the NYSC is akin to how Police manipulated itself to head the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The EFCC enabling law only allows the police to head its operations department. Somehow , the police were able to upgrade to management of the agency. President Buhari saw through the police play at EFCC and changed the leadership with an officer who trained and rose through the ranks.
President Bola Tinubu should equally see through the army play at NYSC and remove the military from the leadership to allow the organisation to think outside the box in managing its current challenges of youth safety, discrimination in youth mobilisation, and stunted career growth for its officers.
A major challenge that renders NYSC almost helpless is managing its principal task of mobilizing youths for national service. The enabling law mandates the agency to recruit three classes of under-30 graduates from tertiary institutions into service – holders of NCE, HND, and graduate certificates. As I noted in the column entry titled In defence of Minister Hannatu (7 September 2023), “There is a serious violation of the law based on the current discriminatory mobilization policy instituted by the agency. NYSC no longer invites graduates of Colleges of Education to national service even though they are specifically listed in the law. Also excluded are graduates from the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).”
It is understandable why the NYSC decided to implement discriminatory mobilisation. The founding fathers of the Scheme apparently did not envisage an explosion in the production of participants. Neither did they factor the issue of an economy that struggles to support the massive mobilization of youth.
NYSC was conceived at a period when Nigeria’s only problem was how to spend its money. At that time, graduates walked into waiting jobs at the end of their service year. Today, there are over 200 universities producing candidates for national service, not counting polytechnics and colleges of education. More than three-quarters of the number will pass out of the scheme and join the ever lengthening unemployment queue. The situation is such that, rather than a yearly mobilization ritual, the Agency now mobilizes on quarterly basis and illegally cuts corners through discriminatory mobilisation of qualified youths.
The agency is in dire need of strategic and creative leadership from within the service as envisaged by its enabling law. It was this sort of imaginative leadership that created a digital transformation that makes it impossible today to fabricate NYSC certificates. By linking the NYSC portal to JAMB, the process allowed the agency to have an informed estimate of participants they can expect among those graduating from Nigerian tertiary institutions. It also eliminated manual recruitments that ultimately gave rise to some of the forgery claims we are witnessing in court battles this election season.
Let’s cut Ajuji Ngelale some slack
I find it funny that many professional media and PR persons are publicly dissing broadcaster Ajuri Ngelale, the presidential spokesperson over his recent gaffes. Truth be told, Ngelale is following on the footsteps of his illustrious forbears, notably the great Lai Mohammed. But he is also doing something nice that Mohammed didn’t, which is what makes his case different, in my view.
Two things.
One is that the Nigerian social media space is now reinforced with an army of energized youths more committed to investigating and debunking the manure of lies that the presidential spokespersons hitherto heaped on credulous citizens. Every authority lie is scrupulously interrogated and uncovered. Ngelale cannot browbeat netizens with the type of barefaced lies that his predecessors sold with a straight face and vigorously defended with bravado and emotional blackmail.
The other, and what makes him a breath of fresh air, is that this is the first time in recent memory that an Aso Villa spokesperson recanted and apologized for selling false statements. His forbears, considered more professional, were not as honest and humble. We should be happy to notice and applaud an improvement in communicating with respect to the public, in contrast with the barefaced lies and gaslighting that defined the Buhari era.
Let’s look on the bright side and cut Ngelale a slack. Hopefully, he will continue to learn, improve, and grow with the office, same way as his boss is apparently learning and growing after his initial gaffes.