SERVICE AND HUMILITY, A MANDATORY CALL TO ANSWER.

It's good to know that everyone who wants to get to the top must learn to serve. In fact, everyone is involved in service.

It's good to know also that service doesn't appeal to many people because, they lack the necessary tool and without humility, it's impossible to serve. According to the Oxford Dictionary, humility is the quality of not thinking that you're better than other people.

However, humility may sound like the religious word where we see Jesus for example, who, out of humility left his throne and came to die on Earth but wasn't afraid to fight for his right to speak out for others, especially those who were poor and struggling, and he spoke to those in authority in exactly the same way as he spoke to everyone else.

In other words, humility is not being a ‘doormat’, and allowing people to walk all over you.

Again, service means an act of assistance to someone. I remember one time I had to organize a group. Gracefully turned the group into winning even a state trophy. This was a group almost forgotten, it rained on me in Service yet, there was a need to put things in order and expecting nothing in return. Although, when I was done with them, I had thought I would be rewarded maybe with tons of greetings and gifts but nothing. I knew even serving them required work and expect nothing.

Today, we see a lot of people who will tell and yell for gifts but, I slide into my shell because I know that service is working in humility with all your strength and expect nothing in return.

A few years ago, a team leader had invited me to present certificates to his members. He slides in his own certificate too which he drafted for himself. I smiled. I had presented all the certificate to his members and presented his own proposed 'deserving' certificate to him. This was a team I changed their operation and many persons came looking for them then I handed it over to him. But I left and never asked for a dine because I felt, my service is an offering.

Service is an offering.

Everyone wants a special recognition but it's important to be recognized in humble, sincere and dedicated Service. Therefore, to serve in a country like Nigeria, it requires all you've got, your agility, strength without expecting any special recognition.

Most youths today have decided not to serve because they aren't ready to offer humility. I would have not trusted myself for coming to Osun state for service (NYSC) if not for accepting who I am. My friends told me to do something and influence my posting. The Cyber Cafe computer operator who registered me for NYSC said, he's been to Osun state. He described the state to be underdeveloped with rough, rusted roofed buildings all over. It almost got me but serving a nation doesn't require gold and diamonds, I had thought.

It's worthy of note that everyone who serves learn to come low while serving. It's good to see every one of equal value. It's excellent to respect others as if their story, idea or contribution is better than yours even if you think you have a better one.

It's no longer new that the entire period of the Youth Service is meant to inculcate in all Corps members the spirit of selfless service to the community they serve and the society at large. It requires the spirit of oneness and brotherhood that our founding fathers practised irrespective of social, ethnic and political inclination.

Osun State is the very opposite of the computer operators proclamations because I long decided to serve Nigeria. I only see the necessary sacrifice attached to it.

The words Service and Humility, have been carefully selected by the Federal Government to help guide all Corp members through the daunting task ahead of us.

Therefore to serve with these goals in mind, alongside other goals of the NYSC, a socially acceptable character and attitude are of paramount importance. Humility and maturity are the watchword and could be seen in the following.

1. Being teachable

2. Having the zeal to carry out assigned tasks

3. Selflessness

Even with the above, Corp members still face certain challenges in our contemporary societies

They are:

1. Lack of guarantee of safety of Corp members (as some have paid the ultimate price during the crisis in the country)

2. Poor remuneration

3. Improper primary assignments (many are posted to fields not relating to their academic discipline).

4. Organizational Disorder.

Despite all these challenges that pose as motivating factors Corp members should be encouraged that 'virtue is its own reward.' The reward of doing good is the knowledge you have done. Be unfazed by the lack of proper appreciation or recognition.

Since the beginning of time people who have been of service have received their rewards in one way or the other. In ancient Egypt for example, classical Greece and in the legalistic Rome and every other society succeeding in the phase of civilization.

Anybody who hasn't seen the need to serve doesn't want to be served. In other words, if you don't serve, you don't deserve to be served. Of course, service and humility are necessary tools to win the hustle in our world. Therefore, I urge all Corp members to see the National Youth Service year as an opportunity of imbibing the virtues of sacrifice, humility and selflessness no matter the challenges. I urge you to learn to serve because Service and Humility is a mandatory call to answer and which are necessary tools required in getting to the top.