SIR: Presently, one will be hard put to find a Nigerian that is not aware or in agreement with the fact that the government is hard pressed to save money by reducing the cost of running the country while trying to plug loopholes through which the available funds are being frittered away.
In this light, it is important to bring the attention of the government back to the National Youth Service Corps – a scheme that has lost its usefulness over the years and has gradually become a heavy burden on the nation’s lean finances.
Forty-three years after the formation of the scheme, it has become largely unproductive and is perceived by graduates as an unnecessary encumbrance to be endured before one can seek paid employment.
Established to foster national integration, those who participated in the early days of the scheme were posted to places far from their areas of origin to promote inter-ethnic interaction and help to bond the country tighter.
In contemporary times however, with the greatly increased mobility of Nigerians and a whole new level of social interaction, you would find in every town, people from virtually all the states of the federation in temporary or permanent residence, effectively neutralizing the usefulness of the NYSC as a means of facilitating the relocation of Nigerians to different places for integration.
Although it is often argued that the NYSC provides hands-on training for young graduates and is also a kind of middle ground to help with the transition from student to worker, it is not entirely the case as students, in the course of study, do undergo a compulsory period of training called SIWES – Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme. It is compulsory for SIWES students to be attached to industries or organizations for practical training to gain skills and relevant experience. It is a requirement which must be fulfilled before graduation. This renders preposterous the argument that the NYSC should be sustained on the grounds of skill acquisition.
To add to the issues militating against the scheme, corps members now get transferred to places of their choice. After the NYSC posting, those unsatisfied simply grease a few palms to get themselves re-posted, most times to their home states which defeats the intent of the entire process.
In the last eight years alone, roughly N500 billion was spent on the scheme. The larger slice goes to pay the monthly allowance of corps members while another huge part oils the bureaucracy running it. We all remember how the scheme was almost grounded some time ago when its budget was downsized by 13 billion, a small fraction of the total figure. If the NYSC scheme is discontinued, part of this huge sum could be used as seed capital for fresh graduates who wish to be entrepreneurs and job creators as it will be of greater benefit to them and the Nigerian society.
Joseph Oko Odey
Garki II, Abuja.