NYSC: Is this scheme worth the security risk?

Fresh calls for reforms over rising insecurity as parents agonise after Imo abduction

BY ORIAKU IJELE & STEPHEN GBADAMOSI

Nigeria’s rising insecurity is fast taking the shine off the National Youth Service Corps, a programme designed to foster unity amongst Nigerians as part of the post-civil war initiatives to engender healing.

The Daily Monitor on Sunday notes that after 53 years, the programme has done quite a lot in ensuring integration by socialisation and inter-marriages, helping people across cultures to bond, but the current spike in insecurity in many parts of the country is making many to seek reforms in the NYSC project in the form of scrapping the programme or suspension of the scheme until security situation improves.

The reality on the ground makes a compelling case against continuing in its current form. Interstate travel—the backbone of the NYSC posting system—has become hazardous. Prospective corps members routinely navigate high-risk corridors, exposing themselves to the threats of mass abductions, highway criminality, and regional instability.

For many families, sending a child across the country is no longer a proud rite of passage, but a month-long exercise in anxiety. The foundational promise of the scheme—fostering cohesion—falls apart when participants are placed directly in harm’s way.

At the moment, the country is battling with the release of corps members who were making a trip to Akwa Ibom from Oyo State only to be kidnapped in Imo State with ransom demands running into billions of naira by the criminals.

Agonising parents of the NYSC members yesterday, Saturday, besieged the palace of the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Rashidi Ladoja, to seek assistance in seeking their freedom from captivity.

According to a statement by the media aide to the Olubadan, Adeola Oloko, in Ibadan on Saturday, the parents, numbering about 20, told Oba Rasidi Ladoja in his Bodija, Ibadan residence to use his good offices and personal connection to wade into the matter, and ensure their release.

Speaking through two of the parents, Alhaja Halima Akande and Mr. Oyebola Michael Akande, the parents said their children’s experience in the hands of their captors over the past two days was better imagined than told.

“The first-class monarch, who received them at about 1:36 p.m., with the Oyo State Police Commissioner, Olugbenga Abimbola; and Aseyin of Iseyin, Oba Sefiu Oyebola Adeyeri, assured them that the matter would be sorted out by the government, as the government is more concerned on the matter as everybody.

“Fortunately, the Oyo Commissioner of Police is here. He will brief you,” Oloko said.

He added that the Oyo State Police boss assured the public that the government was on top of the situation.

While hopes for their release subsists, social activist and presidential candidate of the AAC, Omoyele Sowore is calling for urgent reforms of the scheme to save young Nigerians the agony of the risks involved in road travels today.

Sowore said the October 1 abduction along the Owerri–Onitsha Road highlighted what he described as the dangers of compelling young Nigerians to travel long distances for national service. Police say 20 people were abducted and have intensified efforts to rescue them.

He proposed allowing corps members to serve within their states of origin while calling for the NYSC scheme to be suspended before being scrapped. Sowore said young Nigerians should not be required to travel into areas they consider unsafe to fulfil a compulsory service requirement.

Under his proposed “Sowore 2027” programme, he said the NYSC would be replaced with a two-year voluntary National Job Corps focused on employment, skills development, public works, technology, agriculture, healthcare and education.

But for Mrs. Remi Okoye, who met her husband while she was a youth corper in Anambra in 1999, the scheme in itself is not the problem, so the government should find a solution to the problem which is insecurity.

According to her, “scrapping the scheme entirely may be an overcorrection. NYSC remains a vital bridge for public sector manpower—particularly in rural teaching and primary healthcare—while exposing young Nigerians to diverse cultural landscapes.

“The solution lies in structural reform rather than abolition. Restricting postings to a corps member’s geopolitical zone, replacing compulsory distant travel with localised community service, and upgrading camp security would preserve the programme’s developmental mandate without asking young graduates to risk life and limb.”