SPECIAL EDITORIAL: The NYSC must pay for this wickedness

It is rare to see one story capture so much of what is wrong with Nigeria. A young girl, far from home in an NYSC camp in the North, falls ill. She is assumed to be faking illness to dodge parade, and then is wrongly diagnosed and treated. By the time her mother can get to her in faraway Kano, she is dead. A young life, cut short in its prime. All her dreams and aspirations, the hopes of her parents and family, are gone.

She is not the only one either. Ukeme Monday, a First-Class graduate of Petroleum Engineering, died in the Zamfara camp, and Elechi Chiyerom died in the Bayelsa camp as well. These young people will not even get to celebrate Christmas with their families, never mind having a chance to actualise their potential.

Calls to scrap the NYSC have been growing over the last few years. More and more people are questioning the usefulness of a service year that does little to prepare young people for the job market. Those who still vociferously support the NYSC’s existence do so for a mix of sentimental reasons, and a hope that the scheme can somehow be reconfigured to make it more relevant in the lives of those who are supposed take part in it.

But all that is useless if the NYSC cannot take care of issue number one: ensure that everyone who makes it to camp, makes it back to their homes in one piece. This is the first duty, and to fail in this duty is to fail in all. At the very least, the NYSC authorities in Kano are guilty of negligence, and for this, they must answer. They must answer to Mrs. Inioluwa Oyeyode and tell her why her daughter’s illness was not taken seriously. They must tell her why everything was not done to get Ifedolapo the best care, pending her mother’s arrival. They must tell her why she said goodbye to a hale and hearty young girl, and returns to a corpse.

For a scheme whose raison d’etre is being questioned, these deaths present even bigger questions. The NYSC is accused of being a waste of time. It should not be accused of being a killer.

From this moment, through a daily countdown, YNaija will demand answers from the NYSC authorities in Kano and the Director-General and demand that heads roll. Until those answers are given, and those heads roll, we will not stop. The land is filled with all sorts of horror stories about camps and postings, stories that are more than enough to conclude that the scheme has either outlived its usefulness, or should be rested until a root and branch overhaul is undertaken.

Until this is done, we will not stop.

One comment

  1. Comment:The official in Nysc are useless people that cannot take of Ife illness despite D arrival of her mum and d colleagues in d camp should have act fast.but D official in charge should be charge to court for more explanation and pay for d damage lost place on that family. we should be our brothers keeper

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