How many of our students need to be abducted or killed while trying to fulfill the one-year compulsory National Youth Services programme before the Federal Government that sends them on the journey of uncertainty scraps the service, or find ways of guaranteeing the safety of the youths while they are rendering the so-called national service?

Who among us would remain sane, after passing through the valley of the shadows of death, to train a beloved child in the university, only to see the child die unnecessarily at the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, camp or abducted by terrorists on his or her way to the camp?

Abduction of NYSC members, their avoidable deaths in their camps, or their shooting by trigger-happy security agents while going to or returning from their places of primary assignments, have become recurring incidents in our national life.

The most recent were eight young graduates from Akwa Ibom State who were kidnapped on August 17, 2023 while travelling to an orientation camp in Sokoto State where they were deployed for their National Youth Service programme.

Parents of these abducted young graduates have reportedly been contacted recently by the kidnappers and asked to pay N10 million each as ransom for the release of the victims. According to some of the parents, so far, they have been able to cough out a total of N30.8m and sent to the abductors. Yet, their children have not been released. The kidnappers are demanding that the parents pay another N70 million!

As usual, the Federal Government which compelled those youths to go and serve in parts of the country where there is little or no security, has abandoned them to their fates in the hands of the terrorists. The poor parents are now running from pillar to post selling their lands and other property to pay the ransom money.

The list of other NYSC members who lost their lives in the service is long: Miss Joel Grace Chalya was murdered in Kaduna on October 18, 2023; Maryjane Onoriode was kidnapped in September 2023 by gunmen who demanded N5 million ransom. Twenty-five-year-old Gideon Bitrus Gijuwa, serving in Abuja, was on June 8, 2023 stabbed to death at Mararaba, a border town between the FCT and Nasarawa State, by unknown persons.

In June 2023, five corps members, on their way to their place of primary assignment in Calabar, died in a motor accident. In July 2022, Eunice Igweike was killed while travelling to the NYSC orientation camp in Sagamu, Ogun State.

In 2019, Magdalene Yohanna collapsed at the NYSC Wailo camp, in Ganjuwa LGA, Bauchi State and later died a few minutes after she was rushed to the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, Bauchi. She was reported to have been compelled to participate in a task even after complaining of ill-health.

In the same year, 27-year-old Lillian Mgbanwa was raped and murdered in Imo State only a few days to the completion of her programme. In 2015, Hope Akpan was killed in Ezuhu, Umuhu, Okwuato community in Aboh Mbaise. In 2012, 24-year-old Augusta Chizoba Ndukwu of Umufu-Amaimo in Ikeduru LGA, Imo State, was murdered by unknown persons at Upper Iweka area of Onitsha, Anambra State.

In 2011, after the presidential election in April, nine corps members; Adewumi Seun (Ekiti), Teidi Tosin (Kogi), Adowei Elliot (Bayelsa), Okpokiri Obinna (Abia), Gbenjo Ayotunde (Osun), Ukeoma Chibuzor (Imo), Nwazema Chukwuonyerem (Imo), Adeniji Jehleel (Osun) and Akonyi Sule (Kogi), were killed by a mob in Bauchi.

The NYSC programme was set up in 1973 by the Nigerian government as one of the means of healing the wounds of the civil war and promoting national unity. Since it was established, graduates of universities and polytechnics have been required to take part in the programme for one mandatory year.

The relevant question to ask is whether the NYSC programme has so far been able to fulfill its objective in the past 50 years since it was created. As they say in Latin, Res ipsa loquitur: ‘The facts speak for themselves’. Today, Nigeria is more divided than a decade ago, especially since after the highly divisive 2023 general election which alienated majority of the same youths for whom the NYSC programme was meant.

Nigerians can no longer afford to continue to use their children as sacrificial animals for a programme that has, for more than half a century, failed to achieve its aim, and for a country whose leaders only pay lip service to its unity.

The Federal Government has a constitutional duty to protect the lives and property of her citizens and all law-abiding persons who live within her territory. The government has even greater obligations to ensure that the youths who it sends out to different parts of the country for a national service are safe throughout the programme.

As at today, there is nothing on ground to suggest that the NYSC programme will no longer claim the precious lives of our young people. If the Federal Government cannot find ways to keep these youths safe while undergoing the programme, the NYSC should be scrapped.

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