OF NATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE CORPS(NYSC): DIMENSIONS IN VOLUNTARY SLAVERY AS JAPA IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES
By Taiye Olaniyi
"Treat the youths right
instead of putting up a fight
Treat the youths right
or you will be playing with dynamite".
Brother Jimmy Cliff in another lyric of his ever soul inspiring and evergreen music equally has this to say in his admonition to the youth:
" Be wise, be free when you're young.
Well, someone told me not long ago now,
You're only young but for once.
It's the one time in a lifetime, there's no second chance
So when you're young and hold on to your dreams
There's a world waiting up there
Not always what it seems
Be wise, be free when you're young......".
The two aforementioned songs in their lyrics by my beloved soulmate, brother, Jimmy Cliff spurred the Son of Man to conjecture a comparative analysis of what an exposure, a clarion call to serve Nigeria once as a National Youth Corper and the extent our nation Nigeria in the reality of ways had, has or is justifying such national service to the present corps of our youths.
The qualification to be called or mobilized to partake in the National Youth Service Corp is to have been exposed to the academic rigor of the tertiary institution, passed and graduated with National Certificate of Education, (N.C.E), Higher National Diploma,(H.N.D), and other academic heights of the University Education then from its inception in 1973 and maybe till date.
One also must not be above 30 years of age.
The era of General Yakubu Gowon as the Military Head of State and, Colonel Amadu Ali as the Federal Commissioner for Education then cannot and shouldn't be obliterated from the history of a nation that just emerged from a gruesome civil war.
It was a good attempt at integrating and re-integrating especially the Nigerian youths to the ideals of national consciousness and patriotism through exposure to the geography, economy, and cultural diversity of the peoples in places in Nigeria.
The NYSC somehow established the reality of fate in the lives of my elder brother Tunji Olaniyi and I, that it was during our service years in 1973/74 and 1980/81respectively that we both met the students where we did our primary assignments in Abia and Oyo States respectively and who later became our darling wives today.
It was fun, challenging, and inspiring to be a youth corper in the service of fatherland first at the orientation camp in Gusau then in Sokoto State when late Alhaji Kangiwa was a Civilian Governor, and finally in Oyo State when late Chief Bola Ige was the Executive Governor of the State.
I though graduated with B.A Combined Honours (History/ Geography) but was rated as one of the best teachers along with my fellow corper and housemate Mauri Hoton Rigange of blessed memory.
I taught geography and economics while my friend Mauri though studied political science but was a great teacher of government and agriculture.
Good fellow bonafide teachers, workers, and especially our School Principal Pa Faminu of blessed memory, the food vendor Iya Sumaila, wonderful students that one had met along the way, those lost in transit, those connecting and reconnecting are till date products in one's memory.
All in all, the opportunity to serve one's nation, behaved, and/ or, misbehaved, had their lessons to teach and till date a reflection of the adage that"Experience is the Best Teacher."
The experiences of that time and the challenges thereof and therein, sort of influenced one's commitment and dedication to serving Nigeria with all strength, determination to uphold the good family name and reputation even till date after putting in 35 unblemished years under the auspices of the defunct Department of Post and Telecommunication and later the Nigerian Postal Service.
Since the personification, personalization, and crude partisanship in the politics of Nigeria, every other aspect of life in Nigeria has become politicized and thus ruined.
Public policies, rules of law, business ethics, budgetting, and all economic sanity are daily being turned to shred.
The family lives, community, and communal harmonies of past ages, cultural aesthetics of our forebears are now incinerated by the inferno of religious politics and political-oriented religions and faiths.
It is in such harrowing and gruesome disservice to Nigerians as a whole that the Nigerian youths are daily growing helpless, hopeless, and faithless.
They seem to detest an ideal peaceful but restructured and united nation.
Insecurities abound and so ubiquitous everywhere, poverty is so cancerous, unemployment diabetic in nature, and any inkling and call, clarion call to even the "Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man", to a united and sane citizenry to even the highly placed in government circles, cabinets and cabals, are like a call to self anomic suicide by those who germinate and sprout on the blood of their perceived infidels.
" In youths, we run into problems, at old age problems run into us" so says a golden adage.
This seems necessitating that the once upon National Youth Corpers, the current serving ones and those waiting to be called to the NYSC camps daily embark or hope to embark on fleeing from Nigeria and most times engage on voluntary slavery in their perceived countries where pastures to them seem greener.
Should they or shouldn't they be also blamed to have made Nigeria what it is today? Think about it but note too, that: "The current generation of Nigerians and even the upcoming ones have no other nation to call their home.
Nigeria belongs to all and we must all remain here to salvage it together".
As the Yoruba adage usually addresses the " Youth", "Alagemo ti bi omo ó fi owo re le Ijo, aimojo ku si owo re". That is, that the Alagemo masquerade revels in teaching his ward how to dance at birth if however he doesn't dance well in the course of life and living, the ball surely is in his court.
In the supplication of the Rosicrucian, I humbly submit:
" Today is Yesterday's Tomorrow, Are You Moving Forward in Thoughts and Conducts"?
Are you, the aged, aging aged, the youths, and aging youths?
Think About It.
God Bless Nigeria.
Taiye Olaniyo, a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos