NYSC AND THE CHALLENGE OF INSECURITY 

The authorities must do more by addressing insecurity across the country 

After four months in captivity, two prospective National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members, abducted on Zamfara State highway recently regained their freedom. The young graduates, eight in number, were travelling together in a bus from Akwa Ibom State to Sokoto for the one-year mandatory programme when they were kidnapped. Two of them, in addition to their driver, had earlier been freed while the remaining four are still in custody of the bandits. The NYSC Director-General, Brigadier General Yush’au Ahmed last week assured parents and relatives of the victims that the security agencies would explore all available strategy to ensure release of the remaining members.  

For the parents, the abduction leaves a trail of concerns leading to loss of confidence in the system. Indeed, by their estimation, the managers and the coordinators of the scheme have lived below expectation. Last September, after their patience ran out, these distraught parents took to the street to protest against the failure of government to rescue their children, after spending over N13 million to get them back without avail. The kidnappers are reportedly demanding a hefty ransom of N10 million for each of the corps members, an amount beyond the reach of the parents. 

Unfortunately, abduction of young graduates out to offer service outside their states of origin to the nation has become more of a painful routine. They are, like farmers tending their crops or innocent students in school, constant victims of the scourge of kidnapping and other crimes ravaging the country. Even though statistics are dodgy, there is no doubt that hundreds of corps members have been victims of kidnapping, or even worse, killed in the process of serving the nation. In the last few years, the frequency of the crime has increased exponentially. And it cuts across the country. The more than a decade insurgency in the northeast, the banditry in the northwest and the farmer-herder crisis in the north central have made many corps members vulnerable to attacks in those locations, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).  

However, kidnapping for ransom is also incessant in other geographical regions. Rivers State, for instance, has a dubious reputation for the crime. In one particularly shameful incident in the state, bandits invaded the residential lodge of Community Secondary School in Omuma local government area and abducted the five female NYSC members in broad daylight, along with their generator! And only last May, no fewer than four corps members were also seized in the Emuoha local council area on the Rumuji area of the East-West Road in the same state. 

 The rising insecurity to which corps members are exposed across the country is fuelling calls for the scrapping of the scheme. This is not helped by the country’s economy which has been sputtering for decades with shrinking job opportunities for graduates. The relevance of the scheme has been questioned by some experts and corps members with regard to worrying living conditions. But by far the greatest challenge is the level of insecurity in all parts of the country.  A lawmaker once tabled a bill for the abrogation of the NYSC scheme due to incessant killing and kidnapping of innocent members as a result of banditry, religious extremism, and ethnic violence. 

Established 50 years ago after the brutal civil war, the scheme has as its primary objective of fostering national cohesion and unity. Over the years it has helped in breaking ethnic and religious barriers, strengthened bonds of friendship and inter-tribal marriages, all providing opportunities for national integration. But all this is now being threatened. As it is, the authorities must do more by addressing the challenge of insecurity in the country.