NYSC - In Memoriam

Today, the 2006/2007 Batch B NYSC comes to an end. I can imagine the relief that most of those thousands of poor things must be experiencing (lol)... it is not for nothing that NYSC is called Now Your Suffering Continues...

A year ago, August 19, 2006, my NYSC (Batch B 2005/2006) came to an end. I served in Asaba, Delta State, at the Okwe General Hospital, along the Benin-Asaba Expressway, five kilometers from the Niger Bridge...

While we were in orientation camp at Issele-Uku(August 7 - 28, 2005), I kept a diary. Recently I stumbled on the entry I made on the last day of camp.

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WED 28TH SEPT 2005
06:06 a.m.

Everyone woke early today, in order to submit their mattresses. There was a queue as usual. I submitted mine at 3 a.m.

The hall looks like a rotting body, hacked at angrily by a band of vultures – more and more of the flesh is disappearing, leaving the skeleton beneath. The beds have all been shorn of mattresses, the bunks stand like iron skeletons. All that is left is folks and their luggages.

Most are giving out their buckets, pillows etc, both to lighten their load and be philanthropic in one act.

In a few hours, I can imagine what this place will look like. The ghosts we chased out will file in one by one, singing “It is good to be back Home.”

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In the last few weeks the papers have been awash with the NYSC quota controversy... apparently the NYSC intend(ed) slashing down the number of persons to be mobilised this year, claiming funding problems... so they sent quotas to Universities. The University of Ibadan for example was given a quota of about 600 out of its eligible student population of 1,500...
Considering that NYSC is a prerequisite for MOST jobs in Nigeria (unless your father or godfather is a VERY BIG man), the implication was that the destinies of thousands of Nigerian youth would have been placed on suspension for at least the next one year.

If that had happened, I can imagine a swelling of ranks of the armed robbers in Lagos, and the kidnappers and militants in Lagos, and the "Amala" thugs in Ibadan...

Read about the NYSC controversy here

The Federal Govt has however since stepped in and ordered the NYSC to "behave"... read about it here