SCRAP NYSC SCHEME SO WE CAN GET JOBS, GRADUATE URGE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT DURING CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK AS A RESULT OF DELAY IN MOBILIZATION. WILL SCRAPPING THE SCHEME PROPEL JOB FOR THE YOUTH? IS THE SCHEME REALLY USELESS

The NYSC scheme was created in a bid to reconstruct, reconcile and rebuild the country after the Nigerian Civil war. The unfortunate antecedents in our national history gave impetus to the establishment of the National Youth Service Corps by decree No.24 of 22nd May 1973 which stated that the NYSC is being established "with a view to the proper encouragement and development of common ties among the youths of Nigeria and the promotion of national unity". As a developing country. Nigeria is further plagued by the problems attendant upon a condition of under development, namely; poverty. mass illiteracy, acute shortage of high skilled manpower (coupled with most uneven distribution of the skilled people that are available), woefully inadequate socioeconomic infrastructural facilities, housing.

The NYSC scheme can be improved by enhancing the experience of participants, expanding the scope of community development service, improving infrastructure, and increasing funding.The NYSC scheme has faced several challenges over the years, including inadequate infrastructure, poor living conditions, and security concerns. Additionally, the current economic climate has made it difficult for the government to provide adequate allowances and support for corps members. To address these challenges, there is a need for a comprehensive reform of the NYSC scheme.

The NYSC scheme can explore partnerships with relevant stakeholders to provide empowerment programs for participants. These programs can include access to loans, mentorship opportunities, and job placement programs.

The NYSC scheme can explore partnerships with relevant stakeholders to improve its effectiveness. These partnerships can include private sector organizations, NGOs, and government agencies. Partnerships can provide opportunities for participants to access job placements, training opportunities, and mentorship programs.

In conclusion, improving the NYSC scheme in Nigeria requires addressing the challenges facing the scheme and proposing comprehensive reforms. The NYSC scheme can be improved by enhancing the experience of participants, expanding the scope of community development service, improving infrastructure, and increasing funding. Additionally, the NYSC scheme can explore partnerships with relevant stakeholders to increase its impact and effectiveness.

However, it’s surprising as over the years, the NYSC programme has since been abused by the Federal government itself as it as turned to the opposite of what it’s created for.

This as a matter of fact inspires me as a writer to bring forth to you all the top7reasons NYSC should be scrapped and finally axed up.

1. Waste Of Fund And Resources:

The money FG spends on NYSC orientation camp in each year is enough to train Nigerian graduates on useful entrepreneurial skills acquisition that will equip graduates to become self employed, and further create more job opportunities for them.

2. Spread Of Disease:

it’s a period of “free will” free from home, school, friends and thereby giving Corp members useless reasons to have some unlawful s*x with each other. And these are the persons they just met in camp and will spend just 3 weeks within a confined area. It is believed that the corpers should caution themselves but the occurrence is natural where youths are gathered socially for no tangible reasons. So it encourages spread of STDs or STIs like HIV and it’s extended family

3.Insecurity:

With rising insecurity in various parts of d country- Boko Haram activities in d northern Nigeria (especially in d northeast), risin cases of ritual killings in d southwest & kidnapping cases in d south- south and southeast of the country. NYSC programme is no longer a safe practice considering the fact that innocent, naive youth graduates are deployed to communities & regions they know nothing about, which increases the chances of them being hurt for the 1 year period of NYSCTaking a case scenario of how much the federal government spends on a corp member per year, over 300k, now theres a programme run by the NYSC, called SAED- Skill Acquisition blah blah blah, now if the Federal Government can dedicate 3 months instead of 1 year to thorough SAED alone for all corp members, and set each and every 1 up with this 300k, it would make sense, instead of leaving service to face a jobless labor market, u have your own set upAnd if the government thinks this will be too much finance load on them, the whole service thing should be made optional, without any sentimental attachment to those who have the certificate after the service.

4. Peanut Payments:

The monthly allowance payment of the NYSC to the youth corpers is a nice innovation. On the other hand, it’s a way of punishing the innocent graduates. An amount lesser than 20,000 naira for ann average Nigerian youth is worthless, let alone a NYSC participants striving to go to their places of work daily, buy food stuff, house rent at times and other miscellaneous. It is in every way insufficient as this often discourages them from being active in their assigned posts when there is no financial freedom.

5. Illicit:

This simply means an act of breaking social norms. The rate at which youth corpers engage themselves in prohibited acts is very alarming. It is very rampant in remote areas, example of these acts include giving an innocent inhabitant of the town pregnant, in deceit of dating them or later marriage. Alas, they drop these girls after the passing out parade leaving so many children fatherless nowadays. It is almost easy for male corpers as village girls are inferior to them and see them as a legal humans whom they can believe whatever vow or words they make and say to them.

6. Death:

As anybody may think the one year duration of NYSC should be continued. There are many families dropped in everlasting grief. Any parent would make it a daily prayer to meet again his child servingtheir fatherland. But you would agree with me it’s not possible not to see a report of dead corpers whom their lives were wasted as a result of being used inhumanly. Some mee their death while been used as electoral instruments and many more social dangers which couldn’t have happened if they weren’t in their NYSC service year. A student struggled hard to study for years thereby getting his/her life wasted in a course of serving their fatherland is nothing to write home about.

7. Worthlessness:

After scaling through the six points above. What then is the essence of participating in the NYSC programme if aftermath you end up in labour market also searching for job opportunities like every other people that served also. The whole programm needs re-structuring. If at all it would not be improved, it woul be a nice innovation to introduce 1 year mandatory military/paramilitary service with freedom to choose which arm, be it army, air force, navy, customs, nscdc, dss, police, antigraft agencies, frsc, border patrol immigration etc. Mere serving in this organization will instill discipline, something we are running low on….the truth is, with increasing population, it will be harder for FG to provide for all. But going through such organization, you get to discover yourself and besides I think we need a better intelligence network.

WRITTEN BY: Kashinro Olonrutoba Oluwadamilare

State Code: OS/23A/0071