NIGERIAN NATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE CORPS
(NYSC): WHO IS BEING SERVED?
By Oguchi Nkwocha, MD.
When the Nigerian Senate recently passed the so-
called FOI (popularly known as Freedom of
Information, but therein re-christened Right Of
Information) Bill, any thought that this would be a
meaningful bill evaporated, like all things Nigerian,
when David Mark interpreted and announced this
Bill to mean that the Press will now have an
obligation to reveal its sources to the public. So,
one can surmise that no priority will be given to
learning more, under FOI or ROI Bill, about
Nigeria's “most public,” yet “black box” operation:
the NYSC. Has anyone seen an annual report, a 5-
or 10-, 20-, or even 30-year published report of the
operations of the NYSC?
Started in 1973 by Military Decree No. 24 with the
purported goal of promoting "national unity," the
only acceptable and expected response was
“praise,” because it was a military decree,
originating from the Northerners who were in
charge of the entire Nigeria, and because “national
unity” “sounded” good. You had to have been there
in 1973. Nigeria had just won what has since turned
into a pyrrhic victory over Biafra and Northerners
thus came to assume the arrogant “culture” of
“born to rule” every aspect of Nigeria: no one could
question their authority and power. Back then,
Nigeria was heady and giddy with pride for
defeating Biafra and the Igbo. More so, because, as
Nigerians thought, they had fully displaced the Igbo
and finally locked them up in the corner backroom
from where they would never be allowed to recover
or leave. There was no iota of remorse on the part
of Nigeria for the genocide which it had committed
against non-combatants in Biafra, not to speak of
the pogrom and ethnic cleansing against the Igbo
which led up to the war. When the war ended only
two-three years before 1973, regardless of how
much any Igbo had saved up in Nigerian banks
prior to the war, he was given only 20 pounds. 20
pounds, yes—that was all: but, one is not expected
to be able to fathom this; you had to have been
there. It was all part of the calculated and
deliberate annihilation and humiliation of the Igbo.
So, to say Nigeria had any thought or plan of
“promoting national unity” in 1973 is to accept that
one is going to build a beautiful ice castle in the
open desert.
Today, one can go to the barely functional NYSC
website and read about its goals and mission. Not
one of them has been accomplished—not a single
one! There is no evidence that any unity had been
promoted—least of all, “national unity.” Yet, today,
both draftees and graduating students would
protest, perhaps, violently, if the NYSC was banned:
why? Uncontrollable and rising unemployment in
Nigeria establishes NYSC as a buffer between
graduation and immediate joblessness; and as an
opportunity for job-hunting, albeit unsuccessful. It's
a year-long Summer Camp of sorts delaying entry
into the serious world of competition and graduate
unemployment. For sure, many NYSC graduates are
exposed to and begin to appreciate the poverty of
the masses from other than their own respective
areas; but such reaction is mostly empathy and at
best, patronization, not a motivation to address or
solve the fundamental problems underlying the
poverty.
Where are the reports informing the public of what
this program is actually doing, what it is achieving,
and how it is achieving it and where it is achieving
it? What is the pattern of its leadership—who run it,
where do they come from and whom do they
report to? How much does it cost, and how is this
money spent? Where are the statistics: how many
students, from where, to where, and immediate
post-graduate employment status? Why does
Nigeria wait for a query before it should make
NYSC officers report regularly to the public? What
were and are the hidden agenda of the “owners”
and authors of Decree No. 24 of 1973? It is clear
that “national unity” is out of the question, because
Plantation-Nigeria is the correct term for what it
was then, and even now, with owners and rulers
and slaves—and labor.
Even without such reports, the numbers should
speak for themselves. There is a grossly uneven
distribution of university graduates, South
compared to North, for example. By decreeing that
no graduate serve in his or her area of origin, the
government makes sure that the region with the
least number of graduates has the greatest benefit
from this NYSC service. The monetary allowance
paid to the corps members is such pittance that the
“corpers” are bound to spend it all locally, without
enough to “send some home,” as is the custom with
some regions. This means that, in broad economic
terms, where there are more “corpers,” there is
more money being pumped into the local economy:
the bulk of the funds going to the NYSC program
ends up where the bulk of NYSC participants go.
That's another lopsided boon.
Since “service” is at the heart of this program, one
can imagine what almost 40 years of service can
amount to in terms of human labor. Any skewing of
this work-force based on redirecting members
away from their own communities invariably has a
cumulative multiplying effect: more service and
benefits to those who contribute less, and much
less service and little or no benefit to those who
contribute most to the program, in numerical
terms. This is another huge imbalance—forty years'
worth.
The practical and tangible result of the NYSC
program is that there are so many Igbo-Biafran
university graduates being sent to other parts of
Nigeria with fewer coming in in exchange. If that
many graduates were deployed in Igboland
Biafraland, for 40 years, we would, for example,
have better roads since the federal government
balks at building roads in Igboland / Biafraland,
even while using our graduates in building these
roads elsewhere. There are cities in Igboland-
Biafraland that are so filthy that they are
impassable and impossible to navigate through. In
those forty years, our graduates will have gotten
whoever city official is in charge to work on
municipal cleanliness and hygiene, using their
education, knowledge and skills to impress on the
officials and the residents on how important clean
environments are to health and joyous living. By
their showing their intolerance to such filth for that
long, they would set a good example, and our
society would no longer allow our cities to be
overtaken by rubbish and manure and the people
live in and accept such squalor.
Igbo-Biafran university graduates serving at home
in Igboland-Biafraland would be able to partner
with Nigerian-repressed Igbo-Biafran industries
and enterprises, contributing to their revival and
gaining experience and motivation to keep us on
the cusp of industrial development, despite a
determined program by Nigeria to shut us
completely down. Besides, when they spend their
monetary allotments in Igboland-Biafraland, they
would be contributing to the local economy. NYSC
is a form of brain-drain designed to punish and
penalize Igbo-Biafrans: one forced on by decree
promulgated by Nigeria and those who own and
rule Nigeria.
Presently most Nigerian “educated,” mock the Igbo-
Biafran: if you are so “good,” how come Igboland-
Biafraland is so backward and your cities so filthy?
The so-called “educated” Igbo-Biafrans in their
blindness fall for that. They can't figure out to tell
their tormentors that, had the occupying force
called Nigeria not decreed that Igbo-Biafran youth
must serve in other areas for forty years, that the
same Igbo youth would have beautified our own
area. Other places are cleaner and less backward
because the Igbo-Biafrans are pressed into service
to work to make it so therein. This is otherwise
called slave labor: the Igbo are the slaves, and they
make their masters' dwellings clean and
functioning, at the very expense of their own filthy
quarters. The Igbo university graduates are forced
to boost the local economy of other places while
depriving their own community of the same funds.
So, the NYSC, while showing a public face and
pretending to be aimed at “national unity,” is
actually a program which by mandate shifts
manpower, cheap labor and funds from the high
producers to the low producers, at the expense of
the high producers. We have seen this before in
Nigeria: the Oil resources; produced in one area,
and spent by the non-producing area, while leaving
the producers to choke in the resultant
environmental pollution and degradation. After 40
years, the cumulative effect is tremendous. But,
who is going to know this or even think about it if
NYSC produces no reports that can inform the
public and raise debate about its structure and
operations? And its termination?
This article will certainly be criticized, and by sheer
absolute numbers alone, more so by perhaps Igbo-
Biafran university graduates who have participated,
are participating, in NYSC or are getting ready to. At
the end of the day, with a calmer disposition and
impartial review, there can be no dispute as to the
pernicious effect of this program on Igboland-
Biafraland. There are work and tasks that our
graduates can do in our own land, but, the
graduates are being drafted to other lands to take
care of those faraway lands, while their own
communities fester, fallen into disrepair and most
in need of such restoration. For their part, Nigeria
will be screaming in sham self-righteousness, but it
could never cover the hypocrisy, nor would it have
the honesty to open the NYSC books for all to see
and draw their own conclusions. And for a
challenge, will Nigeria change the rules so that each
graduate can choose where to serve and if at all to
serve; and if it must insist on the compulsory draft,
then draftees are to serve in their own
communities? NYSC is not an institution or symbol
of “national unity”: it is one more mechanism to
take and siphon from one part and give and sustain
the other, at the expense of the former, which is
exactly the foundational basis of Nigeria, starting
from the British amalgamation of the Southern and
Northern Protectorates a century ago. Nothing has
changed, apparently.
This is one more reason why we must exercise our
right of Self Determination to actualize Biafra. We
need to take care of ourselves before we can take
care of others. For sure, the “others” we are
speaking of have not shown any inclination to take
care of us; their own self-interest is always first and
only interest, as it should be, arguably. Every
instance in which we attempt to forget or deny our
own pains and suffering and subjugation by
Nigeria, or pretend that it does not exist, or that we
can overcome it by defending one-Nigeria harder,
is just another painful instance of regression. We
really need to wake up and act accordingly. If we
want to help Nigeria, then, we must find ourselves
and our feet first; that's what Self Determination is
all about. Then, it will be up to Nigeria if it wants
our help or not, if it wants to work with us or not.
Charity should in fact begin at home.
Oguchi Nkwocha, MD
Nwa Biafra
A Biafran Citizen
oguchi@comcast.net




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