By Lanre Ogundipe
Permit me to write, not as a critic of the National Youth Service Corps, but as a deeply concerned Nigerian whose heart has been troubled by reports emerging from the ongoing Batch B Stream II Orientation Exercise across several camps in the federation.
This is not a political intervention. It is a humanitarian appeal. It is an SOS from one generation to another, asking that we pause and reflect on how the Nigerian State receives its own children at the very moment they answer the call to national service.
Every corps member who reports to an orientation camp is first somebody’s son or daughter before becoming a participant in the NYSC Scheme. Behind every young graduate is a mother who prayed, a father who sacrificed, siblings who encouraged, and a family that entrusted their child to the Nigerian State. From that moment of arrival at the camp gate, the Federal Government assumes not only an administrative responsibility but also a moral one.
That responsibility must never be taken lightly. The orientation camp is far more than a registration centre. It is the first official handshake between a young Nigerian graduate and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is where the nation formally says, “Welcome. We appreciate your willingness to serve your fatherland.”
But what message are we conveying if that first encounter is characterised by endless queues, prolonged waiting, overcrowding, exposure to rain or scorching sun, uncertainty, hunger, exhaustion and anxiety?
What does a young graduate conclude when, after travelling for fifteen or twenty hours across difficult roads, he or she is compelled to remain in a queue for hours with no opportunity to rest, eat properly, seek shelter or even attend to basic personal needs without the fear of losing a hard-earned place and being forced to begin the process all over again?
Many of these young Nigerians arrive carrying burdens invisible to the eye. Some live with asthma. Some are diabetic. Some battle hypertension. Others have sickle cell disease or other underlying medical conditions that may not be immediately apparent.
Some young women arrive after arduous journeys and are confronted with circumstances that make even basic hygiene and personal dignity difficult to maintain. These are not matters of convenience. They are matters of health, safety and human dignity.
It often takes only one preventable tragedy to expose weaknesses that have existed unnoticed for years.
Must we wait for such a tragedy? The NYSC scheme has, for more than five decades, remained one of Nigeria’s most enduring nation-building institutions. It has promoted national integration, encouraged cultural understanding and fostered friendships across ethnic, religious and regional divides. Millions of Nigerians have passed through its gates with pride.
That distinguished legacy deserves to be preserved.
Yet preserving an institution also requires the courage to reform it where changing realities demand change.
Nigeria today is not the Nigeria of 1973. Our universities produce significantly larger numbers of graduates. Transportation challenges have multiplied. Security concerns have altered travel patterns.
Technology has transformed administrative possibilities. Population growth has placed greater pressure on infrastructure. These realities demand that the operational model of the orientation exercise be continually reviewed to ensure that efficiency never comes at the expense of humanity.
National service was never conceived as an initiation into suffering. It was conceived as an initiation into nationhood.
No nation should invite its young graduates to national service and allow their first lesson in citizenship to be that suffering is the price of serving their fatherland.
Institutions often communicate values without uttering a single word. When young Nigerians experience unnecessary hardship at the very beginning of their service, the unintended lesson they receive is that their welfare is secondary. That is not the lesson Nigeria should teach its future leaders.
Mr President, I respectfully urge your immediate intervention.
I appeal that emergency measures be introduced to guarantee decent reception arrangements for arriving corps members across all orientation camps.
Covered waiting areas should be available for those awaiting registration. Safe drinking water and simple refreshments should be accessible during prolonged registration periods. Medical personnel should proactively identify and attend to vulnerable corps members.
Registration procedures should be reviewed to minimise avoidable congestion. Reporting schedules should be better managed to reduce unnecessary crowding. Above all, the dignity of every young Nigerian entrusted to the care of the NYSC must become the first priority.
Beyond these immediate measures, I respectfully urge that a comprehensive review of the orientation camp system be undertaken after the current exercise. Such a review should examine camp capacities, registration procedures, digital innovations, welfare standards and emergency response mechanisms with a view to ensuring that the Scheme continues to fulfil its noble objectives under present-day realities.
This appeal is made in good faith. It seeks no controversy. It assigns no blame. It merely asks that compassion should stand beside administration.
Your Excellency, history will not judge us only by the roads we built, the bridges we commissioned or the policies we announced. It will also judge us by how we treated the young men and women upon whom the future of this nation rests.
The greatest asset of the National Youth Service Corps is not its camps, uniforms or ceremonies. Its greatest asset is the confidence of young Nigerians that their country values their willingness to serve.
Please do not allow that confidence to diminish at the gates of the orientation camp.
A nation is judged not only by how it honours its heroes, but also by how it receives its youth. May the first embrace of the Nigerian state be one of dignity, compassion and hope, not avoidable hardship.
*Lanre Ogundipe, a former President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, wrote this piece from Abuja.
