NYSC Members
Tragedy is a depressant, often leading people overcome by emotions to the wrong and often very hasty resolutions. Like all observers of the aftermath of last week’s presidential elections in Nigeria, I was saddened by the loss of innocent lives in the north as a result of a mad frenzy of sadistic unemployed youths convinced that their candidate won. In the process, many lives were lost, including a current serving member of the NYSC Ukeoma Aikfavour whose last status update on April 17 reads as follows:
Na wao! This CPC suporters would hv killed me yesterday, no see threat oooo. Even after forcing underaged voters on me they wanted me to give them the remaining ballot paper to thiumb print. Thank God for the police and am happy i could stand for God and my nation. To all corps members who stood despite these threats esp. In the north bravo! Nigeria! Our change has come.
The exact details of his death is not yet known, and it doesn’t make it less sad, or less a grave indictment on the supporters and leaders of CPC who wanted to win the election by do-or-die. Ukeoma paid the ultimate sacrifice which by now we have resolved to make sure was never in vain. (I’m aware of Facebook pages now calling for a rally in his honour on May 29, as well as calls for the government of Goodluck Jonathan to reward his family, and immortalize his name – all very good, very important steps to offer support and solidarity to those ordinary people who do extraordinary things everyday on behalf of all of us.)
Then there are also the cynics whose only lesson from this unfortunate event is that the NYSC has outlived its usefulness and should be scrapped, or that corp members should be deployed only to their home states. Here is one of such recent examples. Nothing could be more unfortunate than a thought process that finds this as the best alternative to a system that has allowed us to understand each other more than any other in the country. In civilized countries, the lessons from tragedy is not usually an about turn with tails between one’s legs, but a courageous pushing on with a resolve to tackle the problems that makes the tragedy happen in the first place. Nobody can quantify the loss of a human life. But attacking the structure that has – for over thirty years – moved people around the country in order to learn and to contribute at the grassroot level is a bad idea. It is like trying to cure a boil with an invasive laser surgery.
The National Youth Service Corps needs a lot of changes, one of which is the amount of stipend that each corp member gets every month. Another one is that they should be well protected and should never be left to their devices in situations when their security is at risk. Like soldiers defending the country from attack, each corp member is a representative of all of us, and we owe it to them to make sure that they return home safely. But to suggest that they should not be given the chance to experience that diversity that their country is made of is, again, a bad idea that we should never encourage. If they need to live in police or soldier barracks to make them safer, we should encourage that. Not that they should go and serve in their home towns. All that would bring is a future Nigeria where all everyone knows about the country is all they see within miles of their own home. And what good is that for nation-building or for a safer future based on understanding?
The new president, Goodluck Jonathan has such tasks on his hands, to unite the country again, and make such situations unlikely where the call for dividing the country will be a better alternative to working to find safer and more challenging ways to forge a future based on respect and understanding. Meanwhile, people like Aikfavour Ukeoma make me proud to have been an NYSC corper. May his sacrifice remind us of the high price of integrity, the frailness of our current national experiment, the futility of violence, and encourage us to work for a better, more secure future for ourselves.
Dear Author,
As much as I would not want to link the death of the serving corp member to a call for the abolishment of the NYSC – I think there is a need for you to do another post detailing your own experience of NYSC comparing it to what it is today and still give reasons why you think the scheme should still exist.
Hey Adebowale,
My experience as a Youth Corper was not altogether pleasant. I served in Riyom, Plateau State, a local government that has now become a hot-spot for violence. A few months before I resumed on camp there were reported cases of violence in many parts of the state. And who could forget the state of emergency of 2003. While I was there, there were violence in several other parts of the state which put our corp members in harm’s way. However, no one died. None that I know of. Somehow, we always seemed insulated from the issues as long as we didn’t poke our noses in local politics or chase local girls.
I realize that that seems not to be the case again now. Ukeoma is not the only casualty of what has now become a very fragile Northern Nigeria, and it is very, very sad. Elections are serious business in Nigeria and it is a shame that corpers are victims. After all, they’re just trying to help while making some extra dough to supplement the little they already get.
I don’t have the answers. It is tempting to say “don’t use corp members during elections anymore” and the problems will be solved. That won’t solve the problem. We can also say “make it voluntary for corp members to participate in public services like election conducting etc”. It would seem that that is already the case. I doubt that any corp member was forced to participate in election conducting/monitoring. The biggest demand we should make, it seems, is that the government provide adequate security for EVERYONE that participates in future elections. It is never too much to ask, and it is never enough to keep asking for this again and again.
By the way, I returned to Jos in July last year to see how bad things have now become (Read my report about it here: https://nigerianstalk.org/2010/07/22/lunch-in-jos/). There were soldiers on the road at about every half a mile holding guns and inspecting vehicles. It didn’t look like the old Jos anymore. There was the eerie air of unstableness in the air, a feeling that something bad would happen at any moment’s notice – and they always did. Still, in spite of what I saw, I was not going to request that the youth service be stopped, or that corpers be prevented from going to Plateau, although now, I will be willing to say that those who choose not to go to Plateau and other violent hot spots should be allowed the chance to re-deploy as they see fit. What I will plead for is that each local community hosting corp members be held responsible for the safety of their guests. I don’t think that there is any community in Nigeria just waiting for young people to kill. What inevitably happens is the breakdown of law and order and the irresponsibility of hosts to do what they should to protect their guests. If this responsibility is demanded of every community hosting corpers, and places where violence is visited on corp members are punished in some way or the other, then there will be less of those instances.
What I should point out in closing is that even though there were no notable cases of violence against us as corpers in 2005, and that the one-year experience had its VERY depressing moments when I wished I was home among those I loved and understood better, I am glad for it because it opened my eyes to some other part of the country that I would never have been to had it not been for the scheme. I learnt more, met more people, and developed a deeper understanding of our diversity. Thanks for the conversation.
Nothing could be more unfortunate than a thought process that finds this as the best alternative to a system that has allowed us to understand each other more than any other in the country
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I disagree. Strongly!
That statement derives its strength from the flawed, illusion that Nigeria! herself, is a country, that is worth understanding as a construct.
I am utterly sorry; Nigeria, as is, is a fatal contraption. I don’t need to be taken to the extreme ends of Bauchi, to understand the character of the North. Neither do I need to be taken to the Delta, to understand the stark poverty that marks the lives of folks down there.
In that sense, the first problem, NYSC’s first derivative problem is, what is Nigeria ?
If you do not depart from that, with a firm resolution, its a travel in fantasy illusions.
See
http://my.opera.com/dapxin/blog/2011/04/24/nigeria-ty-bellos-the-future-is-here-we-are-nigeria-but-what-kind-of-fut
Ukeoma Aikfavour’s death is not the first incident and it would not be the last. It high time the federal government do a serious appraisal of NYSC. If they can’t guarantee safety then they should do something right.
The problems of NYSC is the problems of Nigeria. If selfishness can be stopped then I see no reason why corpers would be killed in a state he/she is not from…
Regards
Nothing could be more unfortunate than a thought process that finds this as the best alternative to a system that has allowed us to understand each other more than any other in the country
——–
I disagree. Strongly!
That statement derives its strength from the flawed, illusion that Nigeria! herself, is a country, that is worth understanding as a construct.
I am utterly sorry; Nigeria, as is, is a fatal contraption. I don’t need to be taken to the extreme ends of Bauchi, to understand the character of the North. Neither do I need to be taken to the Delta, to understand the stark poverty that marks the lives of folks down there.
In that sense, the first problem, NYSC’s first derivative problem is, what is Nigeria ?
If you do not depart from that, with a firm resolution, its a travel in fantasy illusions.
.whoever wrote these,iyke was a classmate of mine in unn and i know how we both suffered to graduate from unn,only for him to be killed by a senseless idiot from d north that knows nothing but tending to cows,nysc should be scrapped it has outlived its purpose dont understand why the same people you r trying to teach wud turn n kill you at the slightest provocation,nysc should be scrapped ,we dont need it anymore the corp members arent even treated right or well taken care of so the scheme should be abolished it has done one harm too many to still be existing