The National Youth Service Corp experience is one of the best things about being a Nigerian. Sadly, as natural complainers, many Nigerians do not appreciate the benefits of that one-year service.
Let’s start with the camp experience. It is probably the first time that many spoiled youths get to have a taste of regimented discipline. And that discipline is so crucial for character development and the formation of virtues.
You wake up at 5:30 AM, have a cold shower, and then go to the parade ground for morning drills. Then, you have a communal breakfast. The ice starts to melt. And ethnic and tribal differences begin to wane and fade as new friendships are forged.
People from the South also begin to see that Hausa people are just as intelligent as them. And then, by the third day, they also become aware that there are more ethnicities in Northern Nigeria than there are in the South and not every Northerner is an Aboki.
In the South, Northerners experience more culture shocks but eventually see that people are people and that Yan Kudu are not very different from them. They are not all area boys and yahoo yahoo.
You eat local foods, learn some of the lingo, and escape camp to engage in extracurricular activities.
By social night, many young men would have met their future wives.
And then you leave camp for your place of primary assignment, and you notice something. You start to act out some of the disciplines you imbibed during your three weeks of camp.
You arrive early for work (if only your parents could see you!). You are less cavalier and more polite. And then, you begin to blend with the locals while acquiring new skills.
In a year, you will have gained discipline, better understood Nigeria, and have expertise that can spice up your resume/CV and make you the dream of employers.
Since Tuesday, May 22, 1973, when the National Youth Service Corps was established via Decree Number 24, 15.6 million Nigerians have passed through that program.
Those 15.6 million people have been responsible for the most inter-ethnic and cross-religious marriages in Nigeria. They have given birth to the first and subsequent sets of truly Nigerian children.
Children who may have nowhere to go if Nigeria divides, and as a result, will work towards the nation’s unity.
If you wonder why Nigeria has not had a second civil war despite the Maitatsine Revolution, Sap Riots, the Zangon Kataf crisis, the June 12 annulment, the Abacha tyranny, Sharia Riots, Niger Delta Militancy, the Yar’adua impasse, the Boko Haram insurgency, and the #EndSARS riots, the answer is NYSC.
The 8% of our population who went through the program, along with our armed forces, have been the stabilising force in the nation at any point in time.
The thing is that in 2007, there was a baton exchange. For the first time in Nigeria’s history, both the President (Umaru Musa Yar’adua) and his deputy (Dr. Goodluck Jonathan) were products of the National Youth Service Corps.
May God bless General Yakubu Gowon, who came up with the scheme that took my father to Sokoto in 1974 as a young man who did not even know how to say “come” in Hausa. He did not return to Southern Nigeria until he became a Justice of the Court of Appeal who was fluent in Hausa and an expert in Sharia Law.
In loving memory of my late father, Justice Jean Omokri, 1950-2010, seen here with his best friend, Justice Ibrahim Umar, at my call to bar party.
- Reno Omokri
Tuesday, April 15, 2025.
