Corper's Arise.

The Burden Of NYSC

Stakeholders in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) may not forget the year 2009 in a hurry. The number of casualties from road accidents, communal clashes, diseases from improper acclimatization to new environment and sundry sources may not be higher than in previous years. However, the brutal murder of Grace Ushang by sex maniacs in the garb of religious extremists has tilted the casualty scale to the magnitude of an axial dislocation.

So gruesome was the murder that the rancorous debate on the issue almost tore the House of Representatives apart as the lawmaker representing the constituency of the murderers in the house tried to invoke ethnic and religious sentiments into the matter. As usual, the police are leaving 'no stone unturned' in the futile search for Ushang's killers.

Unfortunately, the stones turned so far have not yielded the religious fundamentalists who gang-raped and butchered her in the guise of enforcing Islamic dress codes.

The allegation is that Ushang allegedly breached Islamic dress codes by donning her NYSC trousers. Ironically, the fundamentalists ended up committing the more grievous crime of rape, which I know Islam abhors. Since the stones turned by the police have failed to turn up Ushang's killers, it follows that they may be hiding in the sea of sands of the Sahara strewn across Borno State. Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the embattled governor of Osun State, would have had Ushang's murder (or is it execution) in mind when he warned female corps members in the current batch posted to his state to shun indecent dress codes.

The governor stopped short of recommending maxi and shawls for female corps members serving in Sharia states. Ushang’s murder has again ignited the truculent issue of whether the NYSC scheme is worth the toll in terms of human casualties and financial resources it is exacting from the nation. Many have openly campaigned that the scheme be scrapped as it was not living up to the dreams of its founding fathers in 1973. Others believe that it should be re-jigged and tailor-made to meet the expectations of modern-day Nigeria. Yet others would prefer the River Niger to serve as the natural boundary for the deployment of corps members.

Those in this school of thought want Southerners to be posted to states other than their own in the South, while the same formula is applied to postings in the North. The need to restrict the postings to regional boundaries was reinforced last year when several corps members from Southern states serving in Plateau State were butchered in the religious conflagration touched off by an ill-timed local government election in Jos North Council.

One of the corps members cut down in the ethnic cleansing was painfully tracked by his parents in Lagos in a cell phone until his throat was slit by his assailants who snatched the phone and announced the heinous crime to the bewildered parents. Ushang’s murder a few months ago reechoed the call for the scrapping of the scheme in view of the human casualty and lean purse of the nation. The case for the sustenance of the scheme is even worsened by the large-scale fraud plaguing the system.

The NYSC as an establishment is one big cesspool of corruption. Everything from the supply of kits to feeding in the orientation and passing-out camps are so grossly abused that corps members have to spend their money on feeding and even decent clothing. The federal government spends N150 per meal per corps member each year. However, the meal served the corps members in each of the camps cannot cost more than N20 in most cases, especially when one factors in the advantage of economy of scale engendered by bulk purchasing.

The meals in most of the camps are so poor that corps members who can afford it eat their own meals during most of the orientation period. Perhaps the most scandalous aspect of the NYSC scheme could be detected from the supply of kits. The officials of the NYSC tell the corps members during orientation that the federal government spends N80, 000 on each of their kits. The NYSC kit is made up of a pair of very low-quality khaki trousers, a crested vest, two knickers and two plain T-shirts, a pair of jungle boots and a canvass.

The quality of the khaki trouser is so poor that it could be obtained at N800 in the open market. Everything in the NYSC kit should not cost more than N5, 000. It therefore follows that, for each corps member called up in a year, the federal government is swindled to the tune of N75, 000. That probably explains the crushing financial burden that the scheme exacts from the nation's coffers. If the suppliers of food and kits to the NYSC are swindlers, then, some officials of the scheme are barefaced cheats. There are strong allegations that juicy postings (postings to banks and oil companies) in the NYSC carry a price tag of N50, 000, paid upfront before call-up. Corps members who cannot afford such huge sums still have an option: they split their allowances with NYSC officials and return to their states of origin. This group of corps members hardly spends a night in the area of primary assignment. NYSC inspectors allegedly collect N5, 000 every month from the allowance of the run-away corps member, leaving him with the balance of N4, 500, which he obtains without sweat. Posting to some of Nigeria's rural communities invokes the memory of someone being sentenced to hard labour in the gulags of Siberia in the defunct Soviet Union. The daring ones among the corps members do everything to avoid it. In turn, NYSC officials line their pockets from the predicament of the corps members. Enugu State, with its high propensity for rural communities that could boast of neither water nor electricity, probably has one of the highest numbers of run-away corps members on its pay list. One of the NYSC inspectors in the state allegedly collects N5, 000 each from 55 run-away corps members every month in the current season.

That sums up to a cool N270, 000 monthly. At the end of the service year, the run-away corps member returns to the camp for passing-out formalities. That ends the news. For the run-away corps member, the NYSC objective of national integration by introducing young graduates to cultures other than their own is defeated.

Their only contact with divergent cultures begins and ends at the orientation camp. No interface with the host community. Despite the ill-wind blowing across the NYSC orientation camps, I do not believe the noble scheme should be scrapped. It would boil down to throwing the baby away with the bath water. Thirty-six years down the road, the NYSC might not have achieved much in national integration, but it has made great impact in manpower distribution. Many states in the federation depend solely on the scheme for the supply of their secondary schools with teachers.

They staff the schools with about four or five permanent staff members and wait for the scheme to fill the remaining vacuum each year. The crushing financial burden that the scheme imposes on the federal government could be streamlined by ensuring efficiency in the sourcing of the kits and food supply. If the financial burden still remains crushing as the number of graduates eligible for call-up crosses the 100, 000 mark, the age limit could be reduced to 25 years.

The Nigerian factor, the euphemism for corruption, is at the root of the huge financial burden and lack-lustre performance of the scheme. Corruption is at the root of the dearth of facilities in Nigeria's sprawling rural communities where no corps member wants to risk being posted to. The sex maniacs who raped Ushang and subjected her to Taliban justice are the product of the morally debased society imposed on the system by corruption and impunity. The noble goals of the NYSC would be attained if President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and Africa's largest political party stop paying lip service to the
campaign against graft.
Leadership