•Youth Corps members
A professor of Crop Sciences at the Federal University of Agriculture, Ogun State, Philip Adetiloye, has called for the abolition of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme, citing poor remuneration and the dehumanization of graduates participating in the program.
Professor Adetiloye made this statement today in Ado-Ekiti during a press briefing on the nation’s state, titled “Reform Nigeria or Risk Balkanization.”
The university don argued that the scheme, introduced in 1973, has failed to achieve its primary objective of exposing Nigerians to diverse cultures to promote national unity, adding that economic instability has rendered the program obsolete.
According to Adetiloye, the poor wages attached to the NYSC scheme have demeaned graduates, making it necessary to scrap the program, reports Vanguard.
However, he suggested that the NYSC be restructured to focus on emergency development programs by working with professional experts to tackle key challenges in agriculture, infrastructure, health, and industries across respective geopolitical zones.
His words, “The urge to bridge the educational gap between the North and the South was one of the hidden objectives for initiating the National Youth Service in 1972.
“That objective has been achieved and can no longer be justified. Every state in Nigeria has federal, state, and private universities; hence, using NYSC graduates from Southern Nigeria to fill the educational gap between the North and South has outlived its usefulness.
“The stated major objective of the National Youth Service was to expose Nigerians to other cultures in Nigeria in order to foster national unity. The National Youth Service has not increased national unity nor reduced the perceived differences among the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.
“Nigeria is more divided today than ever due to the insecurity unleashed by Fulani herdsmen on other ethnic nationalities and the severe poverty that can be attributed to a well-established culture of corruption and injustice in the allocation of resources in Nigeria.
“The National Youth Service program should be scrapped because it has outlived its usefulness. The extremely poor wages and dehumanization of our graduates in the name of a National Youth Service make a mockery of the scheme, hence the need to scrap it.
“Uneducated migrant laborers in Southern Nigeria earn between 125,000 and 200,000 naira per month, which is much higher than what university graduates are paid during the so-called national service. National service should not be national suffering”.
Adetiloye also urged the National Assembly to stop funding undergraduate and college studies abroad, arguing that the tuition fees required for such programs are beyond the means of most Nigerians.
“With more than 274 universities, 205 National Certificate in Education Colleges, 85 Polytechnics, and 290 Nursing training institutions in Nigeria, the CBN and the legislative arm of government should stop funding undergraduate and college studies abroad.
“No honest Nigerian in the public sector can afford fifty to one hundred thousand dollars to fund tuition, boarding, and feeding of one student abroad in one academic year.”
He also called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to implement innovative strategies to block loopholes in the banking system and curb the devaluation of the naira currency.
