By Malachy Uzendu
I recall in 1991, when I was proclaimed successful in the degree examination for the award of Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communication by the Senate of then Anambra State University of Science and Technology (ASUTECH). I was ecstatic, looking forward to my name being pasted on the notice board at the Examinations Department, among those mobilised for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.
Brigadier-General Hafiz Momoh, who was the Director-General of the Corps from 1991 up to 1994, faced some uphill tasks mobilising the several graduates of the few universities, mainly federal universities, in the country. The procedure for Corps Mobilisation then was manual and clumsy, with the Corps Mobilisation Department and the various Deputy-Registrars in-charge of Examination or Special Duties at the universities, struggling riding roughshod on one another to get their graduates mobilised.
For the prospective Corps member, being mobilised, then, was nostalgic as they nurtured the desire to travel to other parts of the country, aside the geo-political zone of their birth or where they had studied, to live, experience life, without their parental control. It was an adventure one looked upon with much expectation. Any graduate, who, for whatever reason, was not mobilised for the first tier, would see himself or herself as having suffered serious disability, capable of impacting on their future negatively. Nobody wanted to be enrolled in the second tier Orientation programme (because NYSC then organised only two tiers of Corps mobilisation).
For this reason, the struggle for mobilisation among the graduates was akin to fighting in the erstwhile Iran and Iraq war, or engaging bandits in Nigeria. It was a war nobody knows how it could end. And, this created a cartel of “businessmen and women” both at the NYSC and at the Universities, who utilised the opportunity to fleece desperate graduates of huge sums of money just to secure mobilisation to their places of choice.
Prospective Corps Members had to travel severally to their respective universities to lobby for placement. Some died on their way; some lost their valuables; some were maimed in accidents; some suffered other forms of disability. The desperate ones among the graduates, parted with huge sums of money (as at that then, about N1,000 or a little more), to secure placement to their choice States.
In 1991, Youth Corps members were being paid a monthly allowance of N350.00, upgraded to N700.00 in early 1993. And that was a huge amount of money, which only those with high consumption capacity or that engage in excessive expenditures are capable of exhausting at the end of the month. As at then, while only a few federal universities charged N50.00 per annum as school fee (covering only library and hostel fees), state universities charged nothing above N120.00 as school fee per annum. So, collecting N350.00 every month was a big deal. Fresh graduates who were employed in the federal civil service as at then, were paid about N500.00 per month.
So, the zeal to be paid N150.00 monthly, the desire to be free from parental grip-hold and looking forward to the opportunity to associate with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds, right from the Orientation Camp up to the places of their Primary Assignments were expectantly looked forward to.
In spite of the enumerated challenges confronting Corps mobilisation, every graduate joyfully looked up to participating in the NYSC programme. While students were groaning, NYSC never folded its arms. They were resolved to trap and dissolve the hiccups. And luckily, one Mr. Anthony Ani, who later became the Lagos State NYSC Director; Director, ICT; Director, Corps Mobilisation, and Director, Administration, NYSC, was sweating profusely and privately to decimate the challenges. Providentially, when he was appointed the Director, ICT and subsequently, the Director, Corps Mobilisation, Ani deployed his sweat to preferring the final solution to the myriad of headaches on Corps Mobilisation and posting. With the approval of successive Director-Generals, he evolved an ambitious ICT mobilisation and posting procedure that has stood the test of time, to the satisfaction of prospective Corps members and Corps Producing Institutions.
With the innovations introduced through the industry of Mr. Ani, CPIs must upload the particulars of their prospective Corps members with details on the biometrics and academic record, all synchronised with the information on their Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) database. This procedure has made verification of prospective Corps Members a matter of one bottom touch away. Also, Corps mobilisation have now been reduced to a touch of the bottom, while the challenges hitherto experienced have largely vanished into thin air.
With the computerisation process, a token amount of N2,500.00 at the point of registration by prospective Corps members in an NYSC accredited business center, assists them complete the initial verification and collection of their posting letters as opposed to travelling long distances, spending hundreds of thousands of Naira, facing the challenges of getting involved in accidents, getting attacked by bandits, kidnappers or other unscrupulous elements, is now a foregone issue.
In 53 years, NYSC has really evolved. Not just in terms of upgrade of the monthly allowance of the Corps Members to N77,000.00 (generally considered quite an infra dignitum given the current economic realities), it at least shows that successive NYSC administration have been alive to their responsibilities and not just docile. NYSC has already introduced programmes like the Skills Acquisition programme, through which in liaison with some banks, several Corps Members have been trained and advanced loans at single digit interest with long moratorium, and have this become successful entrepreneurs in various aspects, including in the ICT.
The NYSC has also provided opportunities for Corps members to engage in inter-cultural marriages through the sponsorship of the marriage of Corps members. The Corps has also successfully enrolled Corps Members on the National Health Insurance Scheme and Life Assurance, which has provided succor to ailing Corps Members and supported families pay the hospital bills of their hospitalised children.
Aside these, the Corps has over the years, successfully designed a programme through which Corps Members are recruited as Ad-Hoc staff for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for voter registration and conduct of elections nationwide. With NYSC members now playing critical roles at the polling stations during elections, the integrity of election at that level picked up. What remains as albatross in the electoral process are those aspects where Corps Members do not participate in, that is to say at the various collation points.
Recall that erstwhile Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (rtd) had on May 22nd 1973, established the NYSC to encourage integration and foster unity among graduates and the entire Nigerians following the fratricidal civil war (1967 – 1970), which sufficiently fractured the country’s harmony. As NYSC clocks 53, the federal government has a responsibility to reposition it for excellence. The incumbent Director-General of NYSC, Brigadier-General Olakunle Oluseye Nafiu, who was appointed on March 6, 2025, has a responsibility to sustain the vision and mission of NYSC and ensure it evolves for the better.
There is the urgent need therefore, to immediately review the monthly allowance of Corps Members to rise above the minimum national wage of N77,000.00. Similarly, there has to be serious effort to end banditry and terrorism as well as other forms of violent crimes across Nigeria. There needs no stating that graduates who want to serve their fatherland must be protected and catered for by the government. The life of every corps member, and indeed every Nigerian, should not be taken for granted and left to a meagre compensation.
There is also an urgent need to reconstruct NYSC orientation camps across the country so as to provide efficient accommodation both for Cops Members on orientation and for those who could not get residence when deployed for Primary Assignments. Therefore, state and local governments should brace up, upp their ante and ensure that corps members posted to their states and local governments are adequately catered for and protected. Equally, establishments or institutions where these corps members are deployed for Primary Assignments should rise to the occasion and make them comfortable, in addition to retaining designated percentage after the service year, rather than pushing all of them out to the society in the distress manner they are being pushed out at the moment, without hope of gaining employment.
While joining the Board and management of NYSC to celebrate their 53 years anniversary, not just as an alumnus, but as a patriotic Nigerian, I must implore, beg and plead on all arms of Government to rise and cherish the positive impact of the NYSC and accord it the dignity it deserves. There is no gain saying that the government should meticulously look into the welfare and future of Corps Members and accord the programme the dignity and respect it deserves. NYSC is a programme that has yielded desired benefits and should be encouraged. Given the various, sometimes debilitating challenges, that had put the integrity of the NYSC to scrutiny upon which it successfully discharged such creditably, Nigeria must put NYSC to be prepared for the new phases the country is currently challenged with which is certainly more debilitating and tougher. Nothing must draw back the NYSC to continue to remain as a vehicle for national integration and cohesion which was what Gen. Gowon had in mind when he gave directives for the establishment of NYSC.
*Uzendu, a lawyer and a journalist, wrote in from Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)
