My take on national service

This prompt came at the right time because I'm currently on the verge of going for my country's mandatory one-year service which is popularly known as the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC). In Nigeria, all graduates from a university are mandated to take part in this one-year service and to date, I can't find a tangible reason why this is done because I see it as a waste of time. If maybe the government made it optional and no employer would ask for the NYSC certificate before giving a job, I wouldn't hesitate to skip it.

I graduated from the university last year and as soon as the clearance process started, a lot of my coursemates rushed to get cleared because they wanted to quickly join the next batch of NYSC and I started asking myself; "why the rush?" I mean, it's not exactly special, most people who find it exciting do so because of the fun they will have in camp which basically lasts for 3 weeks, then after that, you get posted to your primary place of assignment (PPA) and if you're unlucky, your PPA might be located in a rural area with no access to electricity and clean water, the kind of place that will make you start wondering if you have gone back in time to the '80s.

I know some Nigerians who find NYSC fun might come across this post, so let me ask, apart from the 3 weeks in camp, which other aspect of NYSC is "fun"? And you can see I put fun in quotes because even the fun in the 3 weeks of camp is questionable as this idea of fun is subjective. What you find fun might not be fun to me because while a lot of people have talked about how fun their stay in camp was, a lot of people have also talked about how stressful and not-so-fun it was, to the extent that some of them even faked being sick so that they can be sent back home.

Also, it also depends on the state or camp you got posted to as some camps are more fun and lively than others but then again it's mostly the same activities that are done in all camps. Most people talk about the camp as the exciting part of NYSC but they are ignoring the part where the camp lasts for just 3 weeks out of the mandatory 1 year of service. So, you are going to have fun for 3 weeks, what happens for the rest of the year? One typical sentence I hear whenever someone wants to talk about the relevance of NYSC is that it helps you connect with people.

I think that's not necessary because people still connect without NYSC acting as some sort of middleman. Another reason I hear is that you get access to opportunities and while this might be true, the percentage of people that actually benefit from this is just too low to make this reason important. The other I saw someone defending NYSC on TikTok because he became friends with a governor's wife through that and then I asked; how many people going through NYSC had that same opportunity and if it was only through NYSC someone could become friends with a governor's wife.

The main reason why NYSC was introduced in the first place was to foster unity after the Nigerian civil war because the posting principle of NYSC is that people are sent to places they are not from. For example, if you're from the East, you get posted to the North or West and if you're from the North, you get sent to the South but it has been over 50 years since it was established and it has outlived its usefulness especially when you consider the number of youths that have been killed while serving the country.

The northern part of the country is notorious for insecurity and even though the number of graduates that are been posted there has reduced, some are still being sent there and some of them end up losing their lives because of the activities of bandits and terrorists. I have heard chilling stories of corpers getting kidnapped and one thing I have found out is that kidnappers specifically target corpers because they believe that they are government "children" and the government will pay lots of money to rescue them, meanwhile in the NYSC brochure, it is clearly written that your family should set aside some money in case you get kidnapped, let that sink in.

Aside from the security issue, it's also a waste of time because after working for a year and receiving a meagre monthly allowance of 33k naira ($22) which is barely enough to feed, you will still be jobless and fighting with millions of unemployed youths to get a job. It would have made more sense if you were guaranteed a job after one year and according to my uncle, that was how it was done during his time but now, you just waste your time slaving away in one secondary school as a teacher (that's what most corpers end up doing) while dodging kidnappers and bandits, after that you begin hunting for jobs and you start wondering why you had to go through that 1 year of hell. Of course, some people do get a job immediately after their service but again, it's a very low percent

NYSC would have been better if graduates actually learned a skill of their choice fully sponsored by the government during that one year. After one year, you receive a grant to kickstart your career, thereby creating jobs for yourself and others as well. And all these will be done in your city of residence, so there will be no need to travel to unfamiliar terrain and start battling it out with bandits. Instead, what we have now is a time-wasting scheme where you get used by the government and get thrown into the labour market with no life support. NYSC is better off being scrapped at this point.

Thanks for reading

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