NYSC: Towards Agricultural Development In Nigeria -By Oladejo Olusola Ayoyemi

The National Youth Service Corps in the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a scheme which guarantees the greatest youth manpower availability and can be used to foster development in any required area by the government. In recent past, NYSC has depreciated in its value among the beneficiary companies and government parastatals.

A brief visitation to the origin of NYSC records that the scheme was set up by the Nigerian government in 1973 to involve the country’s graduates in the development of the country. As a scheme that fosters unity in the country and to help youths appreciate other ethnic groups apart from the corps members’ indigent culture, corps members are often posted to cities far from their cities of origin in order to mix with people of other tribes and learn new cultures.

However, despite the numerous advantages of NYSC to the country, her local communities and graduates who subject themselves to this one year national service, the program has been met with serious criticism by a large portion of the country. The call by several people to have the scheme scraped has been backed up by many reasons which time will not permit me to go into details of. A few points raised by one of the arguers are that the scheme requires huge monetary commitment from the government which hasn’t been justified by visible results and also that the graduates do not necessarily receive relevant experience in most cases leading to wastage of human resources. Well, for me, as I would not support a scrap of the scheme which has survived 43 years of establishment with its great achievements and what great deal it does in the lives of youths and communities being developed, I long to see the NYSC scheme directed towards solving the immediate economic problem of the country.

In my experience of NYSC in recent past, the glory and integrity of the scheme is fast reducing because of the mode of its operation in the area of primary assignment of the corps members. In 2011 when I was mobilized for NYSC, I was posted to Ilorin to serve and after the 3weeks orientation programme, we were all mobilized for national assignment. Frustration began to set in when corps members started taking letters to their assigned places of primary assignment and the employers started giving conditions for acceptance, different from the specified conditions stated in the call-up letters as obligations for the employers to meet. Youth Corps members were rejected by many employers including the so-called rural schools that the corps members were to develop and help solve the problem of inadequacy of teachers. The several reasons for rejection were inability to provide accommodation and other benefits as required for every corps member amongst other reasons. Such corpers would have to keep begging employers to accept them even with the advice of the Local Government Inspector because of the rigors of getting another PPA to serve. There are too many incidences that made me conclude that the NYSC was beginning to loose its glory in the society.

Going straight to my idea for this piece, it was then in 2011 that I thought that Scheme could be geared towards agriculture, hence the utilization of national youth service corps members as tools to foster agricultural development in Nigeria in a way to solve the problem of food shortage and importation of food items we are capable of producing as a country. Meanwhile, Agriculture in my own view is a sector which is capable of enabling almost every educational discipline to be practiced in such a way that will make a world of its own.

I look forward to seeing the practice of NYSC in such a way that in every possible state of the nation, all or most corpers in the state will be trained and guided to cultivate a farmland provided by government and given a particular crop type to nurture for the period of that service year. It may be inform of group project or individual (left to agricultural experts to decide), where government will allocate portions of land to corps members, teach them how to farm in the simplest mechanized way, make provision for those whose educational course of study could be incorporated into agricultural practices such as doctors to treat sicknesses and attend to medical issues in this farming community, accountants to make proper accountability of farm produce or account for necessary farm tools and the acquisition of such, and other fields which can be practiced in the farming environment. Engineers are provided with workshops and saddled with the responsibility of constructing farm tools and repair of damaged ones and machines. Accommodation may be provided to all corps members in a centralized form that will be easy for mobilization to the farming area and back. Social activities can be organized among them periodically maybe weekly to foster interpersonal relationships among the corps members and special types of community projects given to corps members as task towards the end of the service year.

This way, the country will surely make tremendous progress in encouraging agriculture among youths who as a result of such rich and guided exposure may decide to continue after service. Such interested ex-corps members may be given facilities and financial aid to encourage participation.

Through this, the corps members will surely have enough food to consume during their national service year and also to administer for packaging and selling to the general public thereby improving the country’s agricultural practices and food availability.

I can go on and on to highlight other benefits of channeling the National Youth Service Corps programme towards this direction but can only say for now that such is needed at a time like this in Nigeria when crude oil which has been the backbone funder of our economy is gradually failing to provide adequate funds to run the country.

NOTE: Please pardon any imperfections in my write-up. This is an unedited idea written without review.

Thank you

Oladejo Olusola Ayoyemi

+2348037691057.